Updated at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday
By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
Brentwood High football coach Ron Crawford and Brentwood Academy head coach Ralph Potter both have made decisions on the starting quarterbacks for this week's season-openers.

Austin Winfree

Crawford, however, said the Bruins' top two QBs who competed for the spot will play in Thursday night's game at Cookeville High School.

"Right now Austin Winfree will get the first snaps, but Aaron Maher will play each half as well as see time at safety," Crawford said.

BA's Potter, meanwhile, will start junior Max Staver at QB in Friday night's home game against powerful Louisville (Ky.) Trinity. Staver, a transfer from Pope John Paul II, had been battling with classmate Nick Givens for the starting role.

Aaron Maher

Brentwood High's Winfree is an upperclassman as a junior but didn't have meaningful playing time last season with three-year starter Clay Webber under center. But Winfree, son of assistant coach Dan Winfree, has another year in the system over Maher, who is a southpaw like Webber.

“They're both really good,” teammate Truett Harris said last week. “Austin I think has a little bit more experience than Aaron, but Aaron's also a good player. So I think both of them will get some good playing time.”

Both quarterbacks are similar sizes, about 6-foot-1, 190-200 pounds.

BHS starts the season a day earlier than most teams, in the featured game on WXUP-Channel 30's 7:30 p.m. Thursday Night Lights high school football weekly broadcasts.

The Bruins are three-time defending District 11-AAA champs, but have a lot of players stepping up in the program after losing a lot of regulars from 2010 and the 2009 state semifinal team.

Max Staver	Nick Givens

At Brentwood Academy, Staver and Givens have been locked in a battle in spring and fall practice. Staver is listed at 6-5, 230 pounds, while Givens is 5-11, 165.

“I love Nick and Max, I love them both to death,” Eagles offensive lineman Graham Shuler, a Stanford commitment, said before Friday's final preseason scrimmage. “I think they can both be huge for us this year. Both have great characteristics and do some different things well.

“It's not my call, thank the Lord. I'm glad I'm not the coach having to make that call, that decision. I trust Coach Potter with everything. Whoever he decides to put back there, it makes no difference to me, I'm going to protect whoever's back there.”

BA missed the state finals by a one-point loss last season, but on Friday will line up only one returning skill player from 2010.

Ravenwood also has a quarterback battle in the preseason between three quarterbacks. The Raptors, however, don't open play until next week.

(Click here for BHS, RHS & BA season outlooks in Brentwood Home Page's 2011 Football Focus presented by Williamson Medical Center