Coach who ended Apalachee’s 29-game losing streak steps down

Kevin Saunders, the football coach who ended Apalachee’s 29-game losing streak in his first season this year, has resigned, and the Barrow County school has promoted defensive coordinator Chuck Kenyon as his replacement.

“The drive just got too much for me in the evenings, and I just needed to do what was best for me,” said Saunders, a Woodstock resident who was commuting more than an hour each way.

He got the job in March after the previous coach, Mike Hancock, resigned while citing anxiety, grief and depression in the wake of the Sept. 7 school shooting that left two students and two educators dead. Among those was Hancock’s close friend and defensive coordinator, Ricky Aspinwall.

Saunders took the job with a reputation as a rebuilder, a coach who had turned around several downtrodden programs, including Gilmer, where he ended a 32-game losing streak in his first season in 2019.

“We did a great job of getting the program headed in the right direction,” he said. “The kids are tremendous. I can’t say enough about how hard they worked. The groundwork has been laid to have a good team coming back.”

Apalachee won its opening game with a 29-9 victory over Chattahoochee, the school’s first win since 2021. Apalachee finished 2-8. Saunders said that only five of the team’s 22 starters were seniors.

Apalachee let parents know of the change last week and confirmed the coaching change Monday.