By: Jason Bishop

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The season is over for the Camden County Wildcats.

The Wildcats were eliminated in the first round of the GHSA state 7A playoffs at the hands of the North Cobb Warriors, 44-6.

North Cobb was the winner of region 3-7A and a #1 seed going into the 2021 playoffs. The only loss the Warriors suffered was to the Buford Wolves in the season opener. They are a very good football team and overmatched the Wildcats.

Camden ends the 2021 season with a 4-7 mark. It was a tough second half of the season for the Wildcats.

Camden came in with high expectations entering the 2021 campaign. This was mostly due to the second coming of Jeff Herron as Camden Coach; I like to refer to it as the Jeff Herron era 2.0.

Herron won three state titles in his first go around with the Wildcats and 12 straight region titles.

In fairness to Herron, he was trying to implement to complicated Wing-T offensive system to 17-18 year olds, who had never run it and were used to playing out of a spread offense. It was a tall order.

Not to mention the schedule was brutal. By far the Wildcats had the toughest schedule in the state. The Wildcats played games against Glynn Academy, Marietta, and Oakleaf in the first half season of season. The first half of Camden’s season saw them go 4-1 with blowout wins over both Glynn and Oakleaf.

The schedule in second half of the season got even more difficult. Camden had game @ Coffee County, Warner Robins, Colquitt, @ Tift and then at home against Lowndes.

Coffee made the playoffs, Warner Robins is the favorite to win the 5A state title, Colquitt was ranked 8^th in the state, Tift had a new coach and new system and Lowndes was ranked #5 in the state. The second half schedule was brutal.

Despite that the Wildcats played tough in most of those games and had chances to win. Camden lost to Coffee 10-7 on a trick play and a 50-yard field goal. Then lost to Colquitt in over time. After that lost to Tift by a touchdown and then lost to Lowndes on a miracle play right at the end of regulation. The point is Camden could have very easily finished the regular season 8-2 with a region title and a #1 seed in the GHSA playoffs, instead of 4-6.

None the less, the season is over and the record is 4-7. Now the Wildcats look ahead to 2022.

Camden will lose QB Gray Loden, RB Jamie Felix, LB Jadin Jones, RB KK Albertie, DB Zach Andreu, LB Will Dykstra, DL Iman Davis, DL Demarion Davis, DL Quinton Pinkney, K Adonis Coyle, OL Noah Demeritt, OL Thomas Scholl, OL Tyler Yarborough just to name a few.

The question is now can Jeff Herron turn this program back into one that reloads instead of rebuilds, I feel the answer to that question is YES.