Football season may not have gone exactly how GMC Prep School coaches and players wanted, but head coach Steven Simpson believes a foundation is being laid for a successful future that includes a return to region competition.
The Bulldogs finished the season 4-6 for the second year in a row and had to overcome hurdles of both injuries and inexperience. With only three seniors graduating from this year’s team the head coach hopes that giving his young guys some early playing time will lead to increased wins in the coming years.
“Looking back I thought our kids competed well,” Simpson told The Union-Recorder. “I thought we had a lot of young kids that got a lot of valuable reps and valuable experience. We had 10 different freshmen start at some point during the year, so I'm pretty pleased with that. I think that will be beneficial for us down the road. I also think that without injuries we would’ve been a little better off, but that’s part of the game.”
“We’re not where we want to be yet, but with a lot of guys playing a lot of reps it lays the groundwork,” he went on. “Those guys got valuable game experience and as they grow they can lean on that and it’ll help them continue to develop to where we need them to be down the road. We’re only graduating three, so we’re pretty excited about the group that’s coming back.”
The first half of 2017 was certainly more kind to GMC Prep than the latter portion of the schedule. The Bulldogs went 3-2 through their first five games with the season highlight coming in a nailbiter at home against Treutlen County. GMC Prep was up by a single point in the fourth quarter and needed a defensive stop to secure to the season-opening win.
“It came down to the last possession by Treutlen in a 21-20 ballgame,” Simpson recalled. “The kids had to play a full four quarters. Unfortunately we lost a starting offensive lineman for the year in that game, which put a negative light on it, but it showed our kids that they could compete and in the end they could hang on to a ballgame.”
Junior Jalen Milner stepped up and picked off a pass to end the Vikings’ scoring threat to give the Bulldogs a 1-0 start to 2017. The player lost to injury to whom Simpson referred was senior center Jacob Bright, and his absence was felt immediately in GMC Prep’s next game against Wheeler County. The Bulldogs had 11 fumbles in the contest with a majority coming on the center-quarterback exchange. The mishaps were too much for Simpson’s team to overcome in the 35-7 loss at home, a game Simpson pointed toward as one of the biggest disappointments on the season.
After taking care of business in back-to-back road games against Westwood and Oglethorpe County, GMC Prep had quite the oddity in its schedule. The Bulldogs were supposed to play at Schley County Sept. 8, but the contest had to be postponed due to inclement weather approaching the state. The only solution to be found was to play the game the Tuesday before GMC Prep’s homecoming against Temple. The result was a dismal week for Simpson’s team. They were only down 12-0 against Schley at the half, but the injury bug reared its ugly head once again right before the break. Schley scored 32 points in the third quarter en route to a 52-0 win under the Tuesday night lights. GMC Prep tried to regroup for its homecoming bout against Temple, but got blasted again in a more than 40-point loss.
“It wouldn’t be my choice to do that again,” Simpson said when asked if he would play two games in the same week once more. “For us in that situation it was one of those things where we sort of really had to get those games in and that was the only place to make them up. I didn’t want to cheat our kids out of the opportunity to play.”
After losing at home to crosstown friendly rival John Milledge, Friday the 13th turned out to be a lucky night for the Bulldogs when they traveled to Gibson to face Glascock County. They lit the Panthers up on the ground and gained what would be their final win of the season in a 42-14 final score.
Now that the two-year non-region experiment is over, Simpson and GMC Prep have opted to return to a region schedule next year giving the team at least a shot at making the GHSA state playoffs. The Bulldogs’ head coach believes the region schedule departure served its purpose.
“When we went non-region our goal was to learn to compete, and play against some people that you could compete with,” he said. “We did that, but we didn’t necessarily win as many games as we would have liked to win. Going non-region was by no means going to guarantee you eight, nine, or 10 wins. We felt like we’ve learned to compete and our kids have learned what it takes to win at that level. We’ve got a lot of young talent coming. The big thing is you don’t want to take a kid’s opportunity for their entire high school career not to be able to make the playoffs. We felt like after watching film and seeing people in our region that we’ll be competitive. We feel like we’re ready for it, and our kids are excited.”
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