Kipp Branch
Wonder and Ponder
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
2021 has been a pretty good sports year in these parts. As we close out the year here are a series of sports questions that you can ponder.
- Why did UGA fans eat the “rat poison” before the SEC title game against Alabama? Everyone knows UGA has one of those head scratcher games every season.
- Stetson or JT? The media loves to create drama. Kirby knows what he is doing. Kirby is 11-7 in his career against top ten teams and 64-15 overall. Relax folks. January 10th is coming soon and then there will be no more 1980 jokes.
- Will Georgia finally beat Alabama once again in football? Tune in 0n January 10, 2022 Dawg fans.
- Does Dan Mullen think recruiting is important now? I’m thinking maybe so.
- How many times has Florida made the College Football Playoff? Tim Tebow seems so long ago.
- How will Urban Meyer and Jacksonville mesh? Oops we got that answer 3 weeks ago at 1AM in the morning.
- Why is FSU horrible in football? It has been a nightmare in Tally. I don’t see it ending soon either. Coach Prime is waiting by the phone Seminoles.
- Will Nick Saban retire soon? Damn I hope so.
- What in the world has happened to Auburn football? You fire Gus because you hated being 8-4 every season. Now you are sitting at 6-7 after losing to Houston in the Birmingham Bowl.
- Will Georgia Tech football ever recover? The 373 GT fans in state of Georgia want to know.
- Will the Jacksonville Jaguars finally hire the right head coach? Eric Bieniemy fans like me would like to know. Please get it right this time Jags.
- How did college football get so bad in the state of Florida? UCF is the best college football program in the state currently. Wow, just wow!
- Who blew the largest lead ever in the Super Bowl? The Atlanta Falcons haven’t been the same since that debacle. The Matty Ice era is over. It is time to draft a QB for the future.
- Why haven’t the World Champion Atlanta Braves resigned Freddie Freeman yet? Seems like they could have taken care of this right after the championship parade.
- Who is the third best team in the SEC currently behind Alabama and Georgia? The 10-2 Sugar Bowl bound Ole Miss Rebels would like to know.
- Who bailed out on the Gator Bowl this year? Nobody has heard from the 8-4fit Texas A&M Aggies lately. Jimbo is laughing all the way to the bank.
- Is the SEC overrated in football in 2021? Auburn lost to Houston, Mississippi State lost to Texas Tech, Missouri lost to Army, and Florida lost to UCF in bowl games. The evidence is strong in favor.
- Are the Brunswick High Pirates the premier high school football program in Glynn County, Georgia? Of course they are.
- Has AEW surpassed WWE? A resounding yes! Glynn County’s own Anna Jernigan will be the AEW Women’s World Champion before her 30th birthday. Take it to the bank.
- Why is John Willis not in the Glynn County Sports Hall of Fame? My football coach deserves to be in the local hall. It is way past time. Make it happen soon please.
Happy New Year to all. May all of your sports wishes come true in 2022.
Brunswick High Pirates Coach’s Show w Sean Pender November 24
Brunswick High Pirates Coach’s Show w Sean Pender November 17
Restructure
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
It has been an interesting few weeks in the Georgia High School Association.
The GHSA assigned classifications for the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 athletic seasons in early November.
After the classifications were revealed then schools around the state had the opportunity to appeal their placement. Below are the GHSA rulings on the various appeals filed.
Appeals results:
From 7A to 6A:
Won – Arabia Mountain, East Paulding*, Etowah, Rockdale County, St. Pius, Woodward Academy
Lost – Camden County, Carrollton, Kennesaw Mountain, Richmond Hill
From 6A to 5A:
Won: Cartersville*, Chapel Hill, KIPP Atlanta Collegiate
Lost: Blessed Trinity, Marist, New Manchester
From 6A to 4A:
Lost: Thomas County Central
From 5A to 4A:
Won: Perry, Riverdale, Starr’s Mill, Walnut Grove, Whitewater*
Lost: Calhoun, Flowery Branch, Greater Atlanta Christian, Jefferson, Jenkins
From 4A to 3A:
Won: Central-Macon, Cross Creek, Johnson-Savannah, Pickens*, Richmond Academy, Ridgeland, Sonoraville*, West Hall
From 4A to 2A:
Lost: Lovett
From 3A to 2A:
Won: East Jackson*, Therrell
Lost: Bremen, Thomasville, Vidalia
From 2A to A:
Won: Bryan County
Lost: Social Circle
*Six schools were allowed to move down without appealing to accommodate schools below that won petitions to move up.
Schools petitioning to play up:
All won except Fellowship Christian, which must remain in Class A Private.
7A: Milton
6A: Jackson County
5A: Mays
4A: Holy Innocents’, Pace Academy, Trinity Christian
3A: Savannah, Woodville-Tompkins
2A: Aquinas, B.E.S.T. Academy, Coretta Scott King, Davidson Fine Arts, Elite Scholars, Johnson-Augusta, Technical Career Magnet
In coastal Georgia both Camden County and Richmond Hill lost their appeal to play in the 6A classification and will be forced to play in their correct classification on 7A.
The GHSA basically had their hands tied on this one. By granting an appeal to Camden and Richmond Hill the state would have been left with a three team 7A region in South Georgia. Under current playoff guidelines the top 4 teams in each region make the playoffs in each sport.
Region 1 AAAAAAA will look like this next year: Camden County, Colquitt County, Lowndes County, Richmond Hill and Valdosta.
This will be a brutal football region. Camden is rebuilding their football program and under Jeff Herron should be in the hunt for a region title in 2022.
Richmond Hill could struggle in this region in football, but will be very competitive in both basketball and baseball in their new region.
Region 1 will be the only 7A region in all of South Georgia. Richmond Hill had 7A numbers during the last cycle but appealed under the isolation rule and was allowed to play down in 6A.
Tift County dropped to 6A for the 22-23 seasons, which left old region 1 with 3 teams. With Valdosta moving back up into 7A, the GHSA could not grant appeals to both Camden and Richmond Hill so the GHSA denied their isolation appeals and will require them to play in the 7A classification.
In 6A The Coastal Georgia region will look like this: Brunswick, Effingham County, Glynn Academy, and South Effingham.
The GHSA will probably add three Augusta area schools of Grovetown, Evans, and Lakeside Evans to create a 7-team region.
With Richmond Hill moving up a class and Bradwell and Statesboro dropping to 5A, adding the Augusta schools replaces the three teams lost.
Wayne County who finished the season at 0-9 will drop down to 4A.
Benedictine will move up to 5A. Brantley County will drop to 2A. MCA will stay 1A. Ware County and Coffee County will stay in 5A.
Stay tuned for region placements coming in the near future where everyone will learn who they will compete against for the next couple of years.
Brunswick High Pirates Coach’s Show w Sean Pender November 10
We Are The Champions
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Atlanta Braves are your 2021 World Series Champions!
That sounds pretty good doesn’t it Braves fans? This Braves team was not favored in a single series this postseason.
The Brewers, Dodgers, and the Astros all found out that the Atlanta Braves were a team of destiny in 2021. It has been a long 26 years since the last championship in 1995.
To give you some context here is what the world looked like in 1995:
Cost of Living in 1995
Average Cost of new house $113,150.00.
Average Income per year $35,900.00.
Average Monthly Rent $550.00.
Cost of a gallon of Gas $1.09.
US Postage Stamp 32 cents.
Average cost of new car $15,500.00.
To say it mildly a lot of things have changed in those 26 years.
Things looked bleak for 2021 when Ronald Acuna got hurt and was lost for the season with a torn ACL in early July in Miami.
The Braves were not really playing good baseball. At the time the Braves were trailing the Mets in the Eastern division. Actually, the Braves started the evolution to become a World champion back in 2017 when they hired Alex Anthopoulos as GM to clean up a huge mess in the Atlanta Braves Front office, whose illegal signings in Latin America cost the team 13 prospects, wrecked their ability to pursue premium international talent for two years and got the previous GM, John Coppolella, banned from the sport for life.
Anthopoulos, with the Braves not even playing .500 baseball at the time put together an outfield for the stretch run that may go down as some of the greatest moves in baseball history.
It started with Joc Pederson, who came in with a swagger that helped ignite the clubhouse. Pederson hit some big HRs down the stretch as the Braves started winning games. The Pearls became a fashion statement in Atlanta.
Eddie Rosario was brought in from Cleveland. Rosario had to get healthy once he got to Atlanta and then his bat paid dividends. Ask the Los Angeles Dodgers how good he is as Rosario was the NLCS MVP.
Adam Duvall was brought back in from Miami with his much-needed power added into the lineup.
Jorge Soler was brought in from Kansas City and hit a HR in game 6 of the World Series in Houston that landed in the Gulf of Mexico. Soler went on to become the World Series MVP.
These moves pieced together an outfield at the trade deadline that will be viewed as some of the greatest moves in baseball history.
The Atlanta Braves were playing sub-.500 ball until early August.
In fact, they were in third place in the NL East with a 52-55 record entering play on August 3. They went 36-18 in the final third of the season, which was enough to win the NL East by 6.5 games and were a red hot team entering the playoffs.
The bullpen, which struggled for most of the season, became lights out down the stretch run and in the postseason. Minter, Matzek, and Smith became a feared trio in the playoffs.
The magical season just ended in a World Championship for the City of Atlanta. Alex Anthopoulos deserves a lot of credit for building this roster and salvaging the season when things looked bleak. He deserves a huge raise.
Now the Braves need to get Mike Soroka and Ronald Acuna healthy, re-sign Freddie Freeman to a mega deal to make him a Brave for life, and decide what they are going to do with the championship pieces assembled at the trade deadline.
The Braves can worry about those items in a few weeks. Now is the time to celebrate your World Champion Atlanta Braves.
Brunswick High Pirates Coach’s Show w Sean Pender November 3
Brunswick High Pirates Coach’s Show w Sean Pender October 27
The Ole Ball Coach
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Going into the 1990 season Georgia held a commanding 44-22-2 lead in the annual rivalry game in Jacksonville.
UGA fans went to Jacksonville knowing they would find a way to win the contest even if Florida had a better record or more talent.
Bad things always happened to Florida when games were on the line and they would find a way to lose a game they had won. The Florida fan base had come to expect to lose every year.
Florida fans say that was BS, which stands for “Before Spurrier”. Florida hired their Heisman winning QB Steve Spurrier as their head football coach in 1990.
Spurrier’s teams were known for winning with aggressive and high-scoring offenses, and he became known for teasing and “needling” rivals, both before and after beating them on the field.
He is the winningest coach in both Florida and South Carolina program history, and his last Duke squad won the program’s only Atlantic Coast Conference championship over the last half-century in 1989.
Florida’s four consecutive Southeastern Conference championships in the mid-1990s is the second-longest streak in conference history, behind Bear Bryant’s 1970s Alabama teams, and Spurrier and Bryant are the only coaches to hold the record for most conference wins at two different SEC schools.
Spurrier is second to Bryant in total wins, while leading an SEC program.
When Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel won the Heisman Trophy during the Gators’ 1996 national championship season, Spurrier became the only Heisman Trophy winner to coach another Heisman Trophy winner.
In recognition to his contributions to the university and its football program, the University of Florida officially renamed the Gators’ home field “Steve Spurrier-Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium” in 2016.
Immediately the ball coach dominated the series. Take a look at these scores:
1990: Florida 38-7
1991; Florida 45-13
1992: Florida 26-24
1993: Florida 33-26
1994: Florida 52-14
1995: Florida 52-17
1996: Florida 47-7
Georgia fans stopped coming in droves to Jacksonville and began to say we may never win in Jacksonville ever again as long as this guy is there.
No head coach in history has owned more free space in the head of an opposing fan base than Steve Spurrier has over the Georgia Bulldog nation.
When UGA broke the 7 game losing streak in 1997 to UF the ball coach responded by winning four straight before leaving for the Washington Redskins after the 2001 season.
Spurrier ended his Florida coaching career with an 11-1 record against UGA. Total domination from every possible angle, but the mental control over UGA still lingers to this day.
I’m a huge UGA fan and always seem to expect the worst possible scenario because of one man Steve Spurrier. If you are a Georgia fan and say this Spurrier mojo doesn’t still linger then you are lying to yourself.
The mojo is losing its luster as the years go by, but it still creeps in from time to time.
Steve Spurrier is on the Mt. Rushmore of SEC Football Coaches. The man transformed the SEC into what it has evolved into today.
I’m not a Florida fan, but I respect Steve Spurrier as much as any football coach that has ever roamed the sidelines. Steve Spurrier did a number on the Bulldog Nation that has lingered for 30 years.
Georgia leads the series with Florida now 53-44-2. Florida is 22-9 since they hired the Ole Ball Coach, who got 11 of those wins and he hasn’t coached in this rivalry game since 2001.
Brunswick High Pirates Coach’s Show w Sean Pender October 13
