Crisp County will spend the first seven weeks of the high school football season honing its skills against an extremely tough non-region schedule before entering Region 1 competition in mid-October.
That's how it works when you play in a four-team league.
The pre-region schedule, which would test most teams in the classification, pits the Cougars against Class AAAAA No. 6 Dutchtown this week and Class AAAAA No. 1 Bainbridge on Sept. 27. After Dutchtown, Crisp hosts Class AAAAAAA programs Tift County and South Gwinnett before playing Class AAAAA Bainbridge. In fact, the only team Crisp faces from a lower classification is Class AA's Thomasville in the final game before the region schedule begins.
"Our seven-game, non-region schedule is pretty brutal," Crisp coach Brad Harber said. "So while I think that playing really, really good football teams make a team better and then makes them certainly ready for their region play and certainly ready for the playoffs, you just hope that your guys don't get discouraged by the Friday nights leading up to there. We are certainly going to battle and try to win every Friday night, but the teams that we are playing are really, really good football programs."
Crisp gained a positive outlook last season while playing a similar schedule. In back-to-back weeks in 2018, the Cougars shut out unranked Bainbridge, the eventual Class AAAAA state champion, 23-0. Read that slowly -- unranked and eventual champion. The next week, Crisp beat Thomasville, then ranked No. 3 in AA, 42-38 at home. The Cougars lost in the first round of the playoffs to Pike County, but Harber believes a similar pre-region schedule adds to the depth and experience of his team.
Through two games, Crisp is 1-1 with a 29-14 victory against AAAA Americus-Sumter and a loss 16-13 loss to Class AAAA West Laurens. Crisp was driving with several minutes left against West Laurens, but couldn't manage a field goal or a game-winning touchdown.
"We really are a good football team," Harber said. "We just have to concentrate and focus on us. I know that sounds like coach-speak, but that's the truth. The goal through this pre-region schedule is to grind out some first downs and stay healthy."
Harber answered a few questions about his team, the classification and other topics during a Tuesday telephone conversation:
Q. From No. 10, looking up, what do you see?
A. Shoot, Cedar Grove is always tough. We got to experience them in 2016, kind of. I'm not going to say when they jumped on the map, but we got to see them live and in color. They just had so many good players then, and that's where I became familiar with them. Until somebody proves them wrong, they are probably up there. Peach County is right down the road from us. I know what kind of program they run, and they are very, very successful year-in and year-out. I know they are senior-laden, so I know that being in that program for four years and playing in that program with the success they have had, I certainly feel that they have unfinished business to take care of this year. Other than that, schools like Benedictine ..., they're always going to have a really good program. Calhoun is always a good program. All of the top 10 teams are good and well-coached. I coached at Hart County quite a long time ago, and I know coach (Rance) Gillespie does a really good job running a total football program. I know he has been there for a while, and if those guys have learned the way he does things, they're going to be solid.
Q. Through that pre-region schedule, what are the keys to success?
A. In the foreseeable future we will be playing Dutchtown, Bainbridge and a good, traditional football program in Thomasville. Actually Thomasville is the smallest classification school we will play. The rest are AAAA, AAAAA, AAAAAA and AAAAAAA in our non-region schedule. We want to stay healthy and win them all; the season is a long season. We want to keep the players and the coaches focused on a week-to-week basis and try to keep getting better every week.
Q. So, glancing at the playoff bracket on the top-left quadrant. The Region 4 No. 1 seed and the Region 5 No. 1 seed are situated there. Meaning, likely, Peach (R4 #1) and Cedar Grove (R5 #1) will meet in the quarterfinals. Thoughts?
A. Yeah. That's wonderful (laughing), isn't it?
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