Asheboro, Randleman see need for football schedule tweaks

Asheboro’s DJ Scott carries the ball against High Point Central last season. (PJ Ward-Brown / Randolph Record)

Asheboro and Randleman football teams faced schedule vacancies for the 2026 season after High Point Central put its varsity team on pause for next season.

Asheboro filled its slot within a couple of days, setting up a matchup with Scotland at home to open the season Aug. 21. Randleman is sorting out its options.

High Point Central’s announcement came last week. Asheboro acted quickly.

“It will be a good game right out of the gate,” Asheboro athletics director Wes Berrier said. “I gives us a good measurement. It would help us, I would think, with our RPI. We feel really good about the RPI.”

That’s because the Ratings Percentage Index is used to determine postseason seeding.

The Bison went 0-10, with every game ending with a running clock because of the mercy rule. The team was outscored 523-0

Asheboro beat the visiting Bison 59-0 and Randleman won by 42-0 at High Point Central.

Asheboro’s new schedule opening was in the first week of the season, while Randleman played High Point Central in the Piedmont Athletic Conference in the third-to-last week of the regular season – or the ninth playing week out of 11 weeks.

Some clarity for Randleman could come from an upcoming PAC meeting. Randleman’s 2025 open week came at the end of the regular season, so that’s something that Tigers coach David Diamont said he would like to change.

In the meantime, Diamont said he has reached out to High Point Andrews coach Mook Reynolds about the possibility of moving their scheduled game from the first week of the conference slate to the last week of the regular season (when High Point Andrews was to meet High Point Central).

That would gave Randleman flexibility to fill a spot in the season’s fifth or ninth week.

“That’s going to be a lot easier to find (an opponent) than the last week,” Diamont said. “… We’re trying to get ahead of the curve.”

It’s bound to be tricky because Diamont pointed out that most schools signed two-year contracts for non-league games beginning with 2025.

Randleman was the PAC runner-up last season and High Point Andrews placed third.

Getting rid of the open date on the final week would please Diamont, whose team had back-to-back weeks off last fall because of a first-round bye in the Class 4A state playoffs. Plus, winter sports practices were beginning when the Tigers were off prior to the postseason, deflecting players’ attention during a time when the football team didn’t even know who its next opponent would be.

“I’m so against it,” he said of the Week 11 open date. “It’s just not ideal.”

The decision by High Point Central leaves the PAC with six teams playing football, meaning there will be five conference games for each team among 10 regular-season games.

“First of all, very unfortunate,” Diamont said, though he praised the Bison’s energy and classy nature from their matchup.

Asheboro and Randleman are already scheduled to meet. Aside from PAC games and Asheboro, the Bison also faced Western Guilford and Southwest Guilford out of conference.

The change means Asheboro will have six of its 10 regular-season games at home in 2026.

Another opening-week option for the Blue Comets might have been Greensboro Smith, but an agreement was reached with Scotland.

“It didn’t take long,” Berrier said.

Scotland went 8-4 last year, losing 35-24 at Jacksonville in the second round of the Class 6A state playoffs. Asheboro, also a Class 6A team, went 7-4 last year.

The Fighting Scots opened the 2025 season with a 36-33 home loss to Dillon, South Carolina. Chris Metzger, formerly the coach at Montgomery Central, is on the Scotland coaching staff as defensive coordinator. Montgomery Central was in the same conference as Asheboro in the past four school years.

Asheboro and Scotland agreed to a one-year contract, Berrier said. The schools will meet in a junior varsity game Aug. 20 in Laurinburg.

High Point Central has a plan for a junior varsity team next season based on the school’s announcement.