There are just 25 days remaining until the kickoff of the 2018 high school football season. But make no mistake, preparations for the upcoming campaign got underway months ago in weight rooms, sand pits and practice fields throughout the state. And teams throughout northeast Georgia are in full countdown mode.
With that in mind we spent the last couple of weeks catching up with programs around our area to get a feel for how spring practice went, how the summer is going and what coaches believe the fall will look like. We call the series "Two-a-Days" in honor of those old-school grinding sessions that lead us out of summer and into fall, asking each area coach two key questions about the state of their respective programs.
Over the next two weeks, AccessWDUN's Friday Game Night will get you prepped for the start of gridiron action with responses from coaches throughout northeast Georgia. (Teams run in alphabetical order)...
JOHNSON
Unfortunately the Knights are currently working on a school-record 24-game losing streak dating back to 2015. They did not get any help in the off-season as the newest Hall County school to open, Cherokee Bluff, was forged out of Johnson and Flowery Branch, taking even more numbers and potential talent. However, Johnson coach Jason Roquemore remains ever positive as he and his staff continue to try and build something in Oakwood. We caught up with Roquemore to ask him what is the mental state of things as they approach another Fall practice.
QUESTION: Coach, what is it going to take to snap y'alls current losing streak?
ANSWER: We have been forced at times to play several kids who lacked "grass time" in the past two years. That being said, we have struggled at times with our execution in all tree phases. We play in a very competitive region and when you combine some of the mistakes we have made with the competition we play, it can be tough. However, I could not be more proud of our young men. Our kids fight their tails off every Friday. They are very coachable and committed to our culture here and as a coach, I don't know what more you could want. As far as what it is going to take to snap the streak, I think our kids have a better understanding of what it takes to win. They realize that there will be opportunities that arise in games that we have to take advantage of. We are returning 9 on offense and 10 on defense. Bottom Line...our execution across the board has to be more consistent.
Q: How have the kids responded to that kind of adversity?
A: This off season, we have spent a lot time on talking about perseverance and ownership. Adversity of some sort is inevitable...it's going to happen to all of us in life. We challenged our young men on embracing that through perseverance. It's not necessarily the adversity itself, but how you deal with it. We want to have a culture here at Johnson that takes "ownership" of it. I tell our kids all the time, "control what we can control" and that "our peace we have in that is not circumstantial." No score on a scoreboard or football game on a Friday night will ever define them as the men we are helping them to become here. In my book, that is success.
- Previously in Two-a-Days: JEFFERSON
- Up Next in Two-a-Days: LAKEVIEW ACADEMY
