Bishop Media Sports Network
Jason Bishop Show w Kipp Branch December 9
Coach Of The Year
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Brunswick High Pirates Head Coach Garrett Grady was named Region 2-AAAAAA Coach of the Year.
Grady guided the Pirates to a 10-1 record in his first year as a head coach.
Since Grady was named the Head Coach back in February, he has had the Midas touch on everything concerning Brunswick High football.
Grady came to BHS in 2017 as part of Sean Pender’s staff, serving as Offensive Coordinator.
The Superintendent of the Glynn County School System Dr. Scott Spence had this to say about Coach Grady:
“It is rare for a large high school to hire a head coach that is already on staff. The hiring of Coach Grady at BHS was one of the easiest decisions I have ever made, and it seems to be turning out just fine. With Coach Grady it is more about developing the whole student athlete rather than just winning football games. Coach Grady cares about the ‘now’ with his kids and will most definitely be there for them in the future. On behalf of the entire school system, I congratulate Coach Grady on this well-deserved honor”
Garrett Grady graduated in 2006 from Pierce County High School in Blackshear, GA.
Once he graduated, he attended Valdosta State University, where he continued his football career.
At VSU he earned his Master’s in Public Administration and his Bachelor’s in Arts (History).
Grady began coaching in 2010 as a student assistant with Valdosta State’s Offensive Line and moved into the Offensive Line Graduate Assistant position the following year.
He was promoted to Running Back’s Coach in 2012 and successfully coached the group of running backs during Valdosta State’s 2012 National Championship season.
He spent three years on the VSU coaching staff before he returned to Pierce County High in 2013.
Grady spent four years at PCHS where he was the Running Backs Coach (2013, 2014) & Offensive Coordinator/Offensive Line Coach (2015, 2016).
Coach Grady is entering his 6th year at Brunswick High and his 1st year as the Head Football Coach. He has served as the Offensive Coordinator/Offensive Line Coach since 2017.
Grady commented on being named the Region COY:
“I am honored to be named Region 2-AAAAAA Coach of the Year. This is a great testament of what our program is all about-All About the Family. I would like to say thank you to the administration, coaching staff & coaches’ families, players, & community, because without each one of you our success is not possible. I would like to say a special Thank You to my wife, Erica Grady, for supporting me throughout my career and the sacrifices you make, I know it is not easy being a coach’s wife. I look forward to building upon our positive culture and family atmosphere here at Brunswick High School.”
The Pirate Ship is in good hands for the foreseeable future.
Blowing It Down
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Meet rock bottom. Square one. That’s good news or bad news depending on your viewpoint.
Maybe it had to sink like this to inspire the type of reform the Miami Hurricanes are set to see.
But after two decades of mediocrity, it is time.
Welcome to the nuclear reboot.
The season ending loss to Pittsburgh ended too many weeks of opponents throwing upside-down U’s. A tweet sent out by Pittsburgh’s athletic department Saturday night ridiculing UM for kicking a field goal to avert a shutout says it all.
The entire state of being is really bad right now. It stinks. It’s a character tester. Just don’t play the blame game: the list runs too deep and it is irrelevant in today’s discussion.
Does it matter if a roster devoid of impact talent is Manny Diaz’ fault? Or Blake James’ fault. Does Al Golden still get blamed for not firing Mark D’Onofrio?
Does Mario Cristobal get his hand slapped in year one for everything not going perfectly after arriving 12 months ago and staffing an entire football program in a few short weeks.
It is time to look forward, not backward. The rear-view mirror is absolutely horrifying. Rip that thing off the dashboard and smash it into sand, it’s time to embrace the change.
The disastrous 2022 football season is over, but you won’t recognize the Miami Hurricanes come September. Miami hired Cristobal to build a championship team, and his job really starts now. This minute. This second. Time’s ticking.
All was not a waste of time in 2022. Cristobal laid a foundation of expectation. He solidified the University investment in football and was the driving force behind the NIL operations that now exist behind the scenes.
Cristobal can’t be happy about what he found at Miami, or anything else that went wrong this year in this season of hell. It has been a whirlwind, but as far as I know, his agent is not trying to find him a new job.
He wasn’t a candidate at Auburn.
Cristobal must embrace the challenge of the fix here and the work involved. The bottom line is that the Hurricanes will have about 40 new players next season. That’s half a roster.
It is harsh. It is cold. The roster purge is about to take place, which could result in as many as 25-30 players with eligibility left sent to the transfer portal, it is also very necessary for the rebuild. Put simply there is no other way out. Miami fans have been riding and watching the merry-go-round and rollercoaster for two decades.
There will be exit meetings with Cristobal and his staff in the next few days that will result in many more departures by choice or (in some cases) not.
Every one of the 85 roster spots is a valuable commodity right now. Each player will have to prove his worth this year to own one of the spots going into the new year.
This is an unprecedented opportunity for Miami to fix its football program if it can land the right replacements. NCAA rules give new head coaches 18 months to make unlimited roster changes.
Current NCAA rules also allow unlimited signees and transfer additions as long as a program stays under the 85-man roster limit.
Miami didn’t hire Cristobal and pay him $8 million a year because it thought that the program was going to be playing for the national title this year. Cristobal was hired for his recruiting prowess and to push the team in that direction in years to come.
There are lots of good college football teams, but what made Miami “The U” was the SWAGGER!!
Cristobal may make the Canes an ACC contender again, but I’m not sure the SWAGGER will follow!!!
Jason Bishop Show w Kipp Branch December 2
Camden County Wildcats Coach’s Show w Jeff Herron
The Next King Bee?
By: Kenneth Harrison
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Georgia Tech fired head coach Geoff Collins after starting the season 1 – 3. Collins never won back-to-back games at Georgia Tech. He was outscored 210-20 over the final 5 games of his tenure against FBS opponents.
Offensive line coach and run game coordinator Brent Key filled in as interim head coach.
Key went 4 – 4 and led the Yellow Jackets to some upset wins. They beat #24 Pitt and #13 North Carolina. He has interviewed for the position but I don’t believe Tech is going hire him.
Athletic director, Todd Stansbury was also fired with Collins. J Batt was hired as the new AD after working at Alabama for five years as its executive deputy AD, chief operating officer and chief revenue officer. He’s also made stops at East Carolina as the senior associate athletics director and at Maryland as the associate AD.
We are going to take a look at the finalists for the position. Bill O’Brien is one of the names that has been mentioned. The 53-year-old was an assistant for the New England Patriots from 2007 to 2011. He also replaced Joe Paterno as head coach at Penn State from 2012-13. O’Brien became the head coach of the Houston Texans in 2014 and stayed until 2020.
He was hired as the offensive coordinator at Alabama in 2021. He helped the Crimson Tide to a Southeastern Conference Championship in 2021 while assisting Nick Saban in crowning his first Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback (Bryce Young). O’Brien coached Alabama’s offense to 40.8 points per game this season.
Tulane head coach Willie Fritz is also one of the four coaches interviewed for the position. He led the Green Wave to a 10 – 2 record and they are ranked No. 18 in the nation. He’s been at Tulane since 2016 and his overall record is 41 -45.
Fritz met with the media today ahead of Tulane’s conference championship matchup and he was asked about the reports that have linked him to the Georgia Tech head coaching job. Here is what Fritz had to say:
“I talked to the team about it and obviously the initial report gets more traction than the secondary report but I am the head football coach of Tulane, I am extremely proud to be the head coach at Tulane and we are looking forward to the ballgame on Saturday and that is what I told our guys when I visited with them this morning. So… I don’t want to talk about those kinds of things, I want to talk about the ballgame.”
Tulane plays UCF in the AAC Championship Game this weekend and the winner of that game is likely heading to represent the group of five conferences in the New Year’s Six Bowl Game, which would be the Cotton Bowl this season.
Fritz was the HC at Georgia Southern in 2014-15 and led the Eagles to a 17 – 7 record. This stop also means he has experience recruiting in the state of Georgia.
Coastal Carolina head ball coach Jamey Chadwell is also in consideration for the job. He has led the Chanticleers to a 39 – 21 record since taking over in 2017.
Georgia Tech has to hire a good coach that can make the program relevant again.
2022 Crusade
By: Jeff Doke
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Whether intentional or not, it would seem that every Frederica Academy football season has a theme.
2018 championship season was the fastest, the 2020 was the smartest, and it seems the 2022 was the steadiest.
If you had to describe the 2022 season in a single word, it would be weird.
The season started three hours late, when the opening game versus Brookwood was delayed by lightning. Thankfully, the game ended early as well, the Knights losing the abbreviated opener 41-12.
Week two was a much more favorable result, with the Knights leaving Chula, GA with a 34-27 victory.
Frederica went to an all-time record of 4-4 versus the Panthers and brought themselves to a .500 record on the early season.
The next four games proved to be as difficult as expected.
Head Coach Brandon Derrick knew that his team would not get better playing lesser teams, so he scheduled a buzzsaw of a lineup for this year’s squad.
The following four games against Valwood, John Milledge, Clinch County, and Tattnall Square would prove to be losses but valuable ones at that.
Invaluable they were, indeed. While the team was not registering wins, junior running back Jordan Triplett and classmate LB Hamp Thompson were putting up statistics that would place them in the top of the standings in the state of Georgia.
By the end of the year, Triplett would have 2,305 yards rushing on 315 carries with 26 touchdowns, while Thompson would wind up #10 in the state across all divisions with 123 total tackles and 70 solo tackles on the year.
After a 1-5 start to the year, the Knights ran out the schedule in championship style.
The last four games of the year saw the Green & Grey put up an identical 42-point score, and their offensive powerhouse RB Triplett put up a minimum of 300 yards and 3 touchdowns per game, apexing with a 400-yard 6 touchdown effort in the final game. That secured a region championship for Frederica.
The regular season championship would grant the Knights a first-round bye and a second-round matchup against Deerfield Windsor Academy out of Albany, Ga. Frederica had only faced the Deerfield Windsor Knights once before. That was a second-round playoff upset at home ‘Under the Oaks’ in 2016.
The game looked to be a tale of two halves; unfortunately, the first half was the better for Frederica.
The opening drive was a clinical one. The Knights drove 80 yards in 13 plays, cumulating with a Jordan Triplett touchdown 7 ½ minutes into the first quarter.
After a three and out, Jordan ‘The River’ Triplett picked up a punt on two bounces and took back a blissful 88-yard return for a touchdown, taking the Knights to a 14-0 first quarter lead.
Unfortunately, that would be the end of the offense on the night.
Deerfield Windsor would put up three touchdowns over the final three quarters while shutting out Frederica, ending their March to Mercer two weeks early by a score of 18-14.
While any season that doesn’t end on the field at Mercer University seems like a letdown for the Frederica faithful, the 2022 season seems almost like a warmup to what should be another championship run.
2023 should prove to be just as memorable as 2022, regardless of the outcome.
Frederica Academy Knights Coach’s Show w Brandon Derrick November 23
Gold Rush
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Ka’ Shawn Thomas should be the Region 2-AAAAAA defensive player of the year. No other player in this area has had a bigger impact on that side of the ball than Thomas has had.
The 300-pound senior finished his Pirate career with that heartbreaking 29-28 OT loss to Houston County. Thomas has been the ringleader of a senior class that won 35 football games and 3 region championships.
When you mention the name Ka’ Shawn Thomas to his head coach Garrett Grady you get the following “Ka’ Shawn has been an outstanding football player for us for four years. He is our leader on defense. When things get tough the other kids look to him for leadership and he makes things happen on the football field. He can dominate the line of scrimmage and make teams struggle in the run game. He is also a great pass rusher, and he caves in the pocket in the passing game. You don’t see many kids like him that come through high school programs. He will be missed around here and will be a productive college player at Wake Forest both on the field and in the classroom. He has set the standard around here for defensive linemen moving forward”.
Thomas could end up on some All-State teams after the current high school season concludes and will most definitely be an all-region player in 2022.
Thomas committed to Wake Forest back in March. He was the top player on the Wake Forest board and was the first player committed in their 2023 recruiting class.
Wake will be getting a young man with a great motor, quick first step, and at 300 pounds a man who can command double teams from an opposing offensive line. Wake Forest is a program that is on the rise and is very competitive in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Ka’ Shawn comes from a great family, and he would probably tell you his favorite person and role model is his mother, Tashana.
Tashana is one of the nicest people I have ever met, and she has an amazing personality and when momma talks Ka’ Shawn listens. She has raised a solid young man that is going to be a success in life long after his football career is over. His mother and family have instilled a great foundation in Ka’ Shawn.
Ka’ Shawn leaves a great legacy at Brunswick High School. He will be mentioned as one of the all-time greatest players to ever come through the school. I personally believe that he is one of the top ten players that BHS has ever produced.
It has been a privilege to broadcast Ka’ Shawn for his entire BHS career on Pirate Radio. He has been a great ambassador for the program and a ‘yes sir’, ‘no sir’ kind of young man that always greets you with a firm handshake and the upmost of respect.
I know Ka’ Shawn is going to have a fine college career at Wake Forest, and possibly in 4-5 years you could hear his name called by an NFL in a future NFL draft. I know this the young man will be missed on Altama Avenue.
I will leave you with one final comment that I firmly believe. Ka’ Shawn Thomas is the best defensive lineman to ever play at Brunswick High School. I have seen many kids come through the program since I went to my first Pirate football game in 1974 and I can’t think of one better at his position than Ka’ Shawn.
The Best Remain
By: Kenneth Harrison
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The second round of the 7A GHSA playoffs had a major upset. No. 1 Buford lost their first game of the season to No. 6 Walton, 42 – 35. They ended the Wolves 22-game win streak, quest for a fourth consecutive state championship and a possible national championship. This is the first time this century that Buford has not advanced to the quarterfinal round of the playoffs.
“We’re not used to feeling like this around here and that’s a good thing,” Buford head coach Bryant Appling said. “It also handicaps you to an extent because you’ve got to understand what it feels like (to lose) and work a little bit harder. There’s an inch in there we can get and we just didn’t get to it this year.”
The upset means any of the remaining eight teams in the quarterfinals has a legitimate shot to win it all. We are going to take a look at those matchups.
#2 Colquitt County vs North Gwinnett: The Packers (12-0) have to be the favorite to win the state championship now. They beat Harrison in the second round 49 – 28. Colquitt County has an explosive offense. The least amounts of points they scored in a game was 24 against Valdosta.
The Bulldogs (10-2) come into the game unranked but they have had a good season. Their best player is four-star defensive tackle Kayden McDonald. He’s ranked as the 22nd recruit in the state for the class of 2023 and he committed to Ohio State. They also have four-star linebacker Grant Godfrey.
I expect this to be a very close game but Colquitt will win.
#5 Mill Creek vs #7 Westlake: The Hawks (11-1) have the best player in the state, five-star safety/receiver Caleb Downs. They also have Clemson commit and three-star linebacker Jamal Anderson. I think this is the most talented team left in the playoffs.
The Lions (9-3) also have a Clemson commit, corner back Avieon Terrell. This should be a close game but I give the edge to Mill Creek.
#3 Carrolton vs #6 Walton: The Trojans (12-0) are unbeaten and still somehow underrated. They only have two wins this season that were decided by less than 10 points. They beat Marietta in the second round, 47 – 14.
Walton quarterback Jeremy Hecklinski and running back Makari Bodiford played key roles in the upset of Buford. Neither team has a senior ranked as a top 100 recruit in the state but they have talent. I’m picking the Raiders to win since they were able to beat the top ranked team.
#8 Milton vs #10 Grayson: The Eagles (9-3) beat Norcross 30 – 23 to advance to the quarterfinals. Senior safety Bryce Thornton is a three-star recruit and he’s committed to Florida. They have another three-star safety, Robert Billings and he’s committed to Clemson. The strength of the defense is the secondary.
The Rams (10-2) beat Camden County 28 – 10 in the second round. The best player on the team is four-star safety and LSU commit Michael Daugherty. At linebacker they have Tennessee commit Jalen Smith.
I think this will be a very good defensive game and the offenses will have to protect the football. I think Grayson will win.
