By: Kipp Branch

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Garrett Grady begins year two as the captain of the Brunswick High Pirate football program. Year one was a solid success with a 10-1 record with a heartbreaking 29-28 loss to Houston County in the playoffs.

I sat down with Coach Grady to discuss this upcoming season. “I am excited for this fall. I like the fight in this football team. We have some talented players returning on both sides of the ball. I thought we had a great spring practice, and we have picked up on that this summer. We had a tough contact camp with Thomas County Central, Ware County, and Cedartown recently and our kids competed hard. The programs we competed against are elite and we found out plenty about our guys. We know they want to compete, and the effort was outstanding. Effort is something we can control. If we bring max effort, then we can overcome some inexperience we have in a couple of position groups.”

“Our program had a tragedy this summer where we lost a super young man and great human being MyKal Ellis. We are going to dedicate our 2023 season to the memory of this young man. He was such a pleasure to coach and be around. This adversity has brought our kids and all the Pirate nation closer together.”

Let us look at the position groups:

RB: Jamarious Towns and William Heck return for their junior seasons. They combined for right at 1,300 yards rushing and 11 TD’s last fall.

Grady added “We have two solid running backs in those two, and we expect and demand great things from them. The remarkable thing about them is they come to work daily and want to be great.”

QB: Jarrod Elkins returns for his senior season after passing for 1,500 yards and 19 TDs in 2022.

“JR has a cannon for an arm, and he can make any kind of throw we need him to make. He is more experienced this fall, and we feel he can get us where we need to go as a football team.”

WR: TJ Mitchell known in the Golden Isles as “Touchdown Terry” is a game changer.

“There is nothing he cannot do with the football in his hands” added his head coach.

“He can make people miss him in a phone booth. We have some talent in this group.”

OL: Jack Hunt will lead a talented but young inexperienced group. “We must grow up fast this fall in the OL.”

DL: “Donyea Broughton and River Creel have played a lot of football for us over the past three years, and they will lead solid group I feel very good about.”

LB: Devin Smith, the returning region defensive player of the year will anchor a solid Pirate defense.

Grady says “If you produced an all-time Brunswick High football team, he would be on it. He is our team leader on defense and in the locker room. He is a dude and QB’s do not pat the ball when he is coming off the edge.”

J’shawn Towns led the Pirates in tackles with 88 last fall, returns for his junior season.

“He is a thumper. When he hits folks, they go down in a hurry” added Grady.

DB: “Tavion Gadson and Tyler Sams give us a solid core in the secondary.”

Special Teams: “Nobody works harder at their craft than Mcclain Fineran and he has developed into a solid kicker for us.”

Grady added that “Our schedule is tough. We open at Camden and that will tell us all we need to know about our football team right out of the gate. We travel to Effingham to close the regular season and the last two years that game has been for the region championship. These seniors have a chance to go out as 4-time region champions. We shared the title when they were ninth graders and have won it outright the past two seasons. There is a lot to play for. And of course, nobody around here is happy with our playoff results lately. That has really eaten at us this offseason.”