New program East Forsyth ready for first-ever football game

There is plenty of excitement around northeast Georgia as the 2021 high school football season gets ready to kick off this Friday.

The excitement is especially high at the area's newest school, East Forsyth.

The Broncos just opened their doors at the newly-built campus on Jot Em Down Road near the banks of Lake Lanier two weeks ago, and now they're ready to host their first-ever football game Friday night against Ridgeland at Bronco Stadium.

While building a new program is always a challenge, they seem to have a good coach to lead the way. Brian Allison left his alma mater at Union County in January after a 13-year stint to become East Forsyth's first head coach.

Allison led the Panthers to eight state playoff appearances after the team had made just two in its history prior to his arrival. He also guided them to their first-ever state playoff win in 2019.

He said East Forsyth provided an interesting opportunity that he couldn't pass up.

"The attraction was the location of the school and just starting and being a part of a brand-new school and a brand-new program," Allison said. "It was just a little bit of something different and it was time to make a change."

The district is one of the largest geographically among high schools in Forsyth County and was carved mostly out of the district of Class 7A's North Forsyth. Despite that, the school will start relatively small as the football program will open in Class 3A. While they are listed in Region 7-3A, they will play a non-region schedule in their inaugural year.

It's not the first time a new high school has opened in the area in recent memory. Forsyth County just cut the ribbon on Denmark High School in 2018 and nearby Hall County has seen three new high schools open in the last 20 years, with the most recent being Cherokee Bluff, also in 2018.

Several of those teams saw success fairly early on and Allison said he has reached out to some of the coaches who were involved with those schools for advice on starting a new program.

"In particular, I talked to Tommy Jones at Cherokee Bluff. I've talked to (current Chestatee head coach) Shaun Conley who was an assistant at Flowery Branch when that started," Allison said. "The unknowns are the biggest issue that you have. Not knowing from one day to the next of an issue or a problem. It's been really exciting and it's a lot of work."

Most new programs see plenty of struggles in their inaugural season, and Allison said the typical issues of youth, inexperience and lack of depth that normally come with a new school will have to be overcome if East Forsyth hopes to get some wins in 2021.

"We'll start with the realities of it. We have about 75 players, but no seniors, 15 juniors and basically zero kids that have ever started in a varsity game and really not many kids that have ever played meaningful minutes in a varsity game," Allison said. "The positive side is the kids are working very hard and the administrators at East Forsyth and Forsyth County have been very supportive of everything that we've done."

While the immediate future shows challenges, Allison said things are already moving in the right direction for the Broncos to see success down the line. He said a big part of that is the community support they've already seen.

"The community is super excited about this school and our feeder programs are headed in the right direction as far as the elementary schools and the middle schools that are coming here and that's what we want to build on," Allison said.

"We're ready to get this thing rolling. It'll be fun."