Coffee finishes with another 9-win season
Photo: Coffee County football
Robert Preston, Jr.
The Douglas News
DOUGLAS — It’s not going to be easy sitting at home this Friday night without a Coffee High Trojans game to follow.
It’s going to be even harder with the way the season ended. The Trojans should have defeated the Newnan Cougars Friday night. Coffee had the scheme, the players and the talent to advance to the third round of the playoffs.
Unfortunately, the team dug itself into a hole with a few costly miscues early in the game. When the Trojans finally did settle down, they just couldn’t catch up.
When the game ended, the Cougars had to breathe a big sigh of relief, knowing they had just won a game they probably should have lost.
Coffee amassed 384 yards of total offense (172 rushing, 212 passing), forced three turnovers and scored on both offense and defense. Those kinds of stats normally indicate a win, not a loss.
The collective memory of sports fans typically tends to be rather short. It’s very much a “what have you done for me lately?” kind of relationship. So while the detractors and the naysayers engage in their favorite activity in the wake of Friday night’s loss, people should probably take an honest look at the recent history of the Coffee High program and compare it to what the program has experienced the last two years.
In the last 10 years of Trojan football history (including Jerry Odom’s first year, 2005), Coffee has had four coaches. Over that time, the Trojans have a 48-54-2 record (a winning percentage of .462; this includes two games in 1999 that the Trojans won by forfeit; they lost both games on the field).
Included in there are but three winning seasons, all under former coach Bonwell Royal: 2001 (6-4-1), 2002 (7-3-1) and 2003 (6-5). The 2002 team earned the first seed in the playoffs by shocking the Valdosta Wildcats on Nov. 15, defeating the Wildcats 33-20 at Jardine Stadium.
But the last two years have been a different story. Coffee is 18-6 (a .750 winning percentage) with a pair of first-round playoff wins. A number of players off the 2006 team signed college scholarships and many more will sign this year. The Trojans, whose collective record against current 1-AAAAA opponents is nothing short of embarrassing, has an 8-4 region record in two years.
The point is, things are different. The success that has in many ways eluded the program for the last decade has been realized. But people aren’t satisfied — and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s what happens with the lack of satisfaction.
If the players channel those feelings into a determination to get bigger, stronger, faster and more fundamentally sound, nine wins will be the tip of the iceberg. If parents and boosters use that lack of satisfaction to pour even more support into the program, the Trojans will be even more successful for many years to come.
But if it turns into back-biting, laying blame and pointing fingers, the program — and ultimately the kids — will suffer.
The 2007 football season has been a success. It didn’t start out that way, though. This team has had to deal with more adversity than befalls some professional teams. Just weeks before the season began, the team lost one of its best players due to a very unfortunate set of circumstances. Then, in one of the biggest games in the state, another of its best went down with a shredded ACL.
Through it all, the team stayed focused and took care of its business. The 2007 team wasn’t a flashy group that put on a high-octane show for the fans. Rather, they were efficient and controlled. Burke Batten quietly had one of the best seasons a Coffee quarterback has ever had. There was no go-to running back who dominated after Melvin Loving went down. Instead, a group of four or five running backs shared the ball and took care of business. A committee of linebackers held opposing offenses in check while a big defensive front controlled the line of scrimmage.
Were there problems? Of course. There always are. But for a team with the recent history of Coffee High, 2007 was a great season.
And the thing is, 2008 and beyond can be even greater.
