Camden County Wildcats
Leaving The Pack
By: Jason Bishop
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Camden County Wildcat football program will be seeking a new Head Football Coach in the coming weeks.
Bob Sphire resigned as Head Coach Thursday morning.
Sphire was coming off of a 5-6 season with the Wildcats. The 2020 season was one full of ups and downs. Camden knocked off defending state champ Marietta midway through the season and also beat both Raines and Oakleaf. Raines and Oakleaf were playoff teams in Florida.
However, blowout losses to Coffee, Warner Robins and Colquitt in three consecutive games were certainly a low for the season.
In the Warner Robins game, Camden was put on a running clock in the 4th quarter for the first time in the program’s history.
Sphire took Camden to 3 playoff appearances during his 4-year tenure. Those 3 playoff appearances ended up all being losses in the first round to Walton, Marietta and Parkview, respectively.
The Camden Head Coach was 23-20 during his time at Camden, but was 3-9 in the region. Sphire’s only wins in the region were against Tift County. He was 3-1 against the Blue Devils
The Wildcats now former coach went 0-8 against region foes and powerhouses Lowndes and Colquitt in his time as head coach.
Camden seemed to play better at the end of the season, going toe to toe with Lowndes and maybe a personal foul call away from winning that game.
The Wildcats also played tough in the Parkview playoff game, erasing a huge 4th quarter deficit to eventually fall in overtime.
Camden’s wins this season came against Glynn Academy, Raines, Oak Leaf, Marietta and Tift. The Wildcats fell to Richmond Hill, Coffee, Warner Robins, Colquitt, Lowndes and Parkview.
Sphire inherited a team that was coming off of a 1-9 season when he took the job in 2017.
Wildcat Roar
By: Jason Bishop
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
It was a very straining year for the Camden County Wildcats. It was a year full of ups and downs and year that saw Camden decimated with injuries.
Overall, the Wildcats finished the season with a 5-6 record.
Camden opened up at home against the Richmond Hill Wildcats. Camden struggled mightily on offensive and Richmond Hill pulled away, beating the Wildcats 28-11.
The second game of the season went a little better for Camden as they stopped the high-powered rushing attack of the Glynn Academy Red Terrors for a 31-14 win. This started a 4-game winning streak for Camden.
In that streak they beat the Raines Vikings 35-26 on the road, the defending state champion Marietta Blue Devils at Chris Gilman 24-21, and notched a road win against the Oakleaf Knights 25-12.
The tide quickly turned as the injuries continued to mount for Camden and the Wildcats would lose the next three games.
The Coffee County Trojans came to Kingsland and beat the Wildcats in convincing fashion, 37-13.
Then Camden took to the road to play the Warner Robins Demons in a game where the Wildcats were vastly out-manned and put on a running clock in the 4th quarter. Camden lost this game 43-7 and scored on the last play of the game to avoid being shutout. This was, most certainly, the low point of the season.
It did not get any easier for the Wildcats the following game as they traveled to Moultrie to take on the Colquitt County Packers, who were ranked #3 in the state at the time. Despite a valiant effort in the first half, the depleted Camden County Wildcats went down 34-13.
The losing streak ended the following week as Camden manhandled the Tift County Blue Devils 35-14 to notch their first region win and guarantee them a #3 seed at worst.
The following week Camden took to the road to Valdosta to play the Lowndes County Vikings with a #2 seed on the line.
Most did around the state did not expect this game to be close, but with the Wildcats beginning to get healthy they went toe to toe with the Vikings. Lowndes held off Camden in the end for a 28-21 victory.
This ended the regular season for the Wildcats with a 5-5 record. Camden earned their way into the playoffs and took to Atlanta to take on the Parkview Panthers, who were the #2 seed from region 4-7A.
Camden struggled again on offense for the first 3 quarters of the game and fell behind 17-0 in that span. The defense kept the Wildcats in that football making critical stop after critical stop to keep them in the football game.
Camden dominated the 4th quarter and came all the way back to force overtime 17-17.
Parkview would prevail in overtime 24-17 to end Camden’s season.
What we saw for most of the year was a team that was under-manned due to injuries and then a very good football team once the team finally started getting healthy. Evidenced by blowing out Tift, playing Lowndes tough to the end and giving Parkview all they wanted.
We will see what the 2021 season brings to Kingsland.
