Reviving a dynasty ‘like pulling teeth’ for South Georgia former powerhouse
KINGSLAND — Tucker Pruitt faces a challenge unlike any other he’s seen in 10 seasons as a high school football coach.
At his first two schools, Fitzgerald and Appling County, Pruitt elevated programs that were already dominant. Now at Camden County, Pruitt is trying to revive a former state powerhouse that has one 10-win season in the last decade.
The Wildcats have fallen from annual championship contenders to regular first-round playoff exits. It didn’t take long for Pruitt to see why.
“We’ve got a lot of guys that are perfectly OK being average and being common and being normal, and we talked a lot today about you reap what you sow,” Pruitt said. “We can’t sow average, lazy, undetailed seed and expect to have a championship. That’s not how it works.
“It’s like pulling teeth, but every day, we’re beating our head against the wall to try to get them to give us a little more.”
The Wildcats started the century with 13 straight region titles and three state championships. They have won four playoff games since 2016, with three of those coming in 2023 during a run to the state semifinals in legendary coach Jeff Herron’s second stint with the program. Camden County missed the postseason entirely last season and finished 1-5 in Region 1-7A — home to juggernauts Valdosta, Colquitt County and Lowndes.
Pruitt said several senior leaders have helped change the program’s culture since he arrived, including senior linebacker William Smith.
“Our team is definitely in a rebuilding state as of right now,” Smith said. “We’re learning and trying to get all the players on board. That’s our weakness. All the players are not on board.
“Ever since I got here, all four years, Camden has been a, ‘I want to do this my own way’ team until a coach shows up who’s like, ‘Hey, we’re going to do it this way.’”
Pruitt said he has seen a desire for change from the first time he addressed his new team. The first-year coach figures the failures of 2025 have fueled the Wildcats this offseason.
“I know that the expectations at Camden are not to miss the playoffs, and when I got here, I was hoping they were a little upset about that,” Pruitt said. “And I think they are, and I think they want to do better.”
Pruitt said that starts with contending for region championships again, which is no easy task. The Wildcats play in arguably the toughest region in the state. Lowndes, Colquitt County and Valdosta all enter the season ranked in Class 7A’s top 10.
Camden County has gone 3-9 against those teams since 2022 and finished higher than third place in the region just once.
Region standings won’t decide playoff berths as the Georgia High School Association’s new PSR seeding model takes effect this year, but competing in Region 1-7A is a main area of focus for the Wildcats.
“We definitely talk about winning the region all the time, just coming off how it went last year,” receiver Sean Green said. “We won one region game, and that team isn’t even in the region any more. So we definitely talk about it a lot.”
To Pruitt, region success might say more about his team than the rest of the Wildcats’ season.
“If you can play with Valdosta and Lowndes and Colquitt County, you can play with most everybody,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt is no stranger to improving programs. He led Fitzgerald to its first state championship since 1948 and led Appling County out of a transfer scandal under a previous head coach to an 8-4 finish in his only season there.
High school football has changed since Camden County was dominating Georgia in the early 2000s, but Pruitt believes there’s still untapped potential in Kingsland.
The Wildcats aim to start unlocking that potential when they open their season at Brunswick at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
“Change happens, but there was a lot of things that were appealing to me about this job,” Pruitt said. “If you look at last year, they didn’t make the playoffs, but if you look two years prior, they made the semifinals. So obviously there’s some work to do, but not too long ago, they were in the thick of it.”