There are just 30 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, sandpits 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)...
LUMPKIN COUNTY
The Indians are going through yet another coaching change, their fifth since 2012, but new head man Caleb Sorrells is not shying away from quickly trying to bring them back into the conversation in Region 7-3A.
Sorrells is switching them from a power running team into, hopefully, a more uptempo spread attack. He and his staff got a late start to the season but Sorrells is crediting the senior class for helping to bring the changes into focus more qucikly.
QUESTION: Coach, you got a late start taking over the program. What have you seen from a positive standpoint that can help you get the ship headed in the right direction?
ANSWER: I told the seniors on our very first day together when a new coach takes over, it can go one of two ways: either the seniors buy in and that first year can be special, or the seniors lag behind and that first year is one you have to endure in order to build for next year. I'm grateful to our seniors that they have chosen to buy in. We have changed almost everything about the way things were done here. But to their credit, they have really embraced a new standard, a whole new staff, new offensive and defensive schemes, new everything.
Q: After years of being known as a power running team, you are changing the offense to a spread attack. How is that transition coming along?
A: We are right where we should be when you consider how late of a start we had. We missed spring practice, the staff wasn't fully complete until (Tuesday of) last week, and we are installing new schemes on both sides of the ball. So we know that it will be a process that will be ongoing well into the season. But all things considered, the kids have picked up what we're throwing at them. We have a ton of two-way players, so we are trying to find the balance between keeping it simple enough not to overload them while trying to be complex enough to be ready for whatever Towns County will throw at us in the first scrimmage.
- Previously in Two-a-Days: LANIER CHRISTIAN ACADEMY
- Up Next in Two-a-Days: NORTH HALL
