Four Questions with North Gwinnett coach Bob Sphire

2. Who is the best Georgia player you ever faced? "Wow, pick your poison! Chase Thomas, Walton; Greg Reid, Lowndes; Lorenzo Carter, Norcross; Alec Ogletree, Newnan; Robert Nkemdiche, Grayson, Cameron Heyward, Peachtree Ridge; Taylor Heinicke, Collins Hill; not to mention Marcus Lattimore from Byrnes, S.C., or Michael Bush of Louisville Male, Ky. I feel like I am just scratching the surface and could go on and on with many others whom we have been blessed to compete against, because we have played against some great competition over the years. I will say that when we faced Chase Thomas in the Georgia Dome in 2007, that may have been the most game-planning around one particular player that we have ever done as an offensive staff. Chase just had a knack for knowing where the ball was or where it was going and he could win one-on-one battles and make game-changing plays. We game-planned and avoided him almost the whole night except for one time, and we accidentally ran speed option at him and he almost intercepted the pitch and would have taken it back for a TD if he had."

3. What is the best team you ever faced as a coach? "Again, there are a lot of teams to pick from, but I will narrow it to four: 2012/13 Norcross teams, 2007 Lowndes, 2007 Prattville, Ala., and 2002 Louisville Male. The Norcross and Lowndes teams were both so good defensively to go along with the ability to make big plays with explosive athletes on offense and special teams. Prattville had a team that was very physically dominant, and Louisville Male had the best player I have ever coached against, in Michael Bush, and they had a lot of athletes with speed."

4. If you were Gary Phillips, the new head of the GHSA, what would be the first rule that you would try to change? "I don't really have anything political to recommend, but I do know that from a timing standpoint late in a game, a team with the lead and the ball can run the clock down for 25 seconds and then just before that time runs out a player on offense can jump offsides and the officials will then mark off the penalty and then rewind the clock and the team can run another 25 seconds off the game clock before having to snap the ball. I am not sure they can't do it multiple times, if they chose to take advantage of the rules. Why does this rule need changing? In order to keep a team from running off extra time late in the game gaining an unfair advantage in the timing aspect of the competition. Within the last few minutes of a game, the officials should mark those penalties off and not restart the clock until the next snap if the offense is in the lead. There are teams who take advantage of that, and it either forces the opponent to burn another timeout to keep an extra 25 seconds from running off or they can just keep running off extra time while having the lead. I believe the officials have the ability to use their discretion in these situations, but I have never seen that discretion exercised. I guess the key is this: Don't be behind late!"

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