Believe it or not there are only 45 days left until the start of the 2015 high school football season -- both around the state and right here in northeast Georgia.
With that in mind, AccessWDUN is already in full preparation mode. Over the next three weeks we will give you a sneak peek of what’s in store for 2015 with our "Two-A-Days" series. We will bring you two key questions -- and answers -- for each program in our coverage area, twice a day. Each morning will start a new program, with another highlighted each afternoon. And at the end of each week we will also provide some video footage and commentary from area coaches.
Programs will run in alphabetical order, starting with Banks County.
Last season saw the Leopards take a huge step forward in their second campaign under head coach Biff Parson, storming back from an 0-10 mark in 2013 to go 5-5 and finish within a hair's breadth of the postseason. Things are certainly looking up in Homer, and with a number of lettermen returning from 2014 we caught up with Parson to talk about the state of Banks County football as it begins earnest preparations for 2015:
QUESTION: Your program experienced a big bounce-back last season. Are you ready to take it a step further this season?
ANSWER: That's our goal. This is year three for me and my staff. Any time you come in you look at a big picture of around a five-six year window of getting a program in a consistent, competitive mode. From going 0-10 to 5-5 (last season), including games where it could have went either way, so you’re 7-3, 8-2 (instead of 5-5), you feel good -- but we weren't satisfied because obviously any team's goal should be getting into a playoff spot and making a run into the playoffs. So that is what we talk about here every day: continuing the work that we put in for two years and making this third year even better and progressing to try and get into a playoff spot.
QUESTION: Who are some of the guys that you are excited about and will be standouts for you this season, especially on offense?
ANSWER: We’ve got everybody back on offense. We had a couple of receivers graduate and a tackle graduate, but, offensively, we’re going to field 11 guys that played last year. Griffin Goodwin, this will be his third year at quarterback. Travae Cain will be a senior, and he'll play some quarterback, and he’ll play running back, and he’ll play everything on the field. We’ve got a kid, Logan Hubbard, that will play running back. And we’ve got Zezmon Steeple, our leading receiver, coming back. So we feel like we've got some weapons and we've got five seniors up front that have played together for three years. Our concern is our depth. We lost 17 seniors, and when you lose that many kids, especially at our program, depth is now a concern for us across the board at every position. What we field out there, our starting 11 on offense and defense, we feel good. They've got some playing time, but we hope the injury bug will miss us this year. Of course this is the game of football, and when you play 10 games something will go wrong and somebody will get hurt, so it’s our job to prepare those younger kids. The younger kids are now 10th graders. Those are the cards dealt to us, so we've got to get our back-ups better and more prepared and ready to play because there's going to be a time in the season when they get their number called, no doubt about that.
COMING LATER TODAY: Buford
http://accesswdun.com/article/2015/7/321345/two-a-days-high-school-football-countdown-is-on-starting-with-banks-county