Can Clark Atlanta football continue to build on historic season?

Clark Atlanta’s historic football season last year came down to solving a transportation issue.

“We just came in and got all the wrong people off the bus and got some of the right people on the bus to get completely bought in,” Clark Atlanta coach Teddy Keaton said. “From the equipment manager, all the way to the head coach.”

Keaton, an affable coach with a successful track record at Stillman (his alma mater) and Allen University, saw potential in the Clark Atlanta opportunity that few others picked up. Clark Atlanta was 0-10 in 2023 and was not viewed favorably.

“I saw it had a lot of potential,” Keaton said. “We’ve played Clark over the years and you saw fight. You saw different things. They’d have a good defense one year and something else another year. They could never put the complete puzzle together.”

But Keaton’s West Coast offense clicked, and quarterback David Wright wound up being the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Player of the Year. The Panthers went 7-3-1 — their first winning season since 2008 — and reached the SIAC championship game.

“Everybody had to speak the same language, talk the same philosophy, just be willing to work and get it done,” Keaton said.

He even got the team to rally around a slogan: “Be the Reason.”

“I tell them, you can be the reason we fail or you can be the reason we succeed,” Keaton said. “Everybody bought in and did what they were supposed to do. They knew what to do, how to do it and why it was important for them to do it that way. It just helped the organization all the way around.”

The newfound success has set off fervor at Clark Atlanta. The program went from having 55 players on the roster last season to 101 when preseason camp began two weeks ago.

Wright, the SIAC’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2023 at Allen and league MVP last year at Clark Atlanta, completed his eligibility. He now is a graduate assistant for the Panthers. His departure leaves a scramble for the starting quarterback job, which has not yet been settled. But otherwise the Panthers have plenty of talent returning.

David Martin (16), who caught 17 passes in 2024, is also expected to be an important receiver for Clark Atlanta this season. (Courtesy of Clark Atlanta)

One of the top returning players is Armone Harris, a senior from Tampa, Florida, who led the team with 75 receptions for 1,004 yards and 14 touchdowns. Harris initially jumped in the transfer portal, but decided the grass wasn’t greener on the other side.

“He almost got away from me,” Keaton said. “He had a bunch of teams vying for him, and he went there for about a week and he came back and said, ‘Coach, I made a mistake. I need to come back.’ I think he found out he could catch a lot more balls playing for Coach Keaton than he could for the school he went to.”

Clark Atlanta has another talented receiver/returner in Ronnie West (26 catches in 2024), who was named to the Preseason All-SIAC team, as was offensive lineman Denzell Moore.

Promising offensive newcomers include: freshman running back Elijah Miller of Grayson, who ran for 130 yards in the Class 6A state championship game last year; wide receiver Chry’Shawn Sellers of Hughes, who helped his team reach the Class 5A state championship game last year; and quarterback K.J. Pope of Hapeville Charter, who threw for 2,679 career yards and 19 touchdowns.

The defense is led by preseason all-conference pick Kurtis Waye, who had 34 tackles and nine tackles for loss in 2024. New faces include freshmen defensive linemen Payton Bell and Caleb Williams, both from Louisiana, and linebackers Javarian Jenkins, who moved in from Jackson State, and Christian Murphy, a transfer from Western Carolina.

The Panthers will get an indication of where they stand in the season opener when they play Valdosta State, which finished second in NCAA Division II in 2024, on Aug. 30 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.