Heard County coach embraces No. 1 ranking ahead of opener vs. ranked 5A team
Today’s Four Questions interviewee is Heard County coach Shane Lasseter, whose Class 2A team is No. 1 in the AJC Varsity/GHSF Daily rankings. Heard County reached the semifinals last season and returned its four leading yardage producers — Ethan Tisdale (2,607 yards passing, 1,134 rushing), Darience Coleman (1,169 rushing, 1,543 all-purpose), Zaiden Moreland (766 receiving, 255 returning) and Brody Buc Cofield (746 receiving). This is Lasseter’s sixth season as head coach and 23rd season on staff. Heard County is his alma mater. Heard County will open its season Friday at home against Central of Carrollton, the No. 5 team in Class 5A.
1. How do you feel about the No. 1 ranking? (It’s the program’s first since the final poll of 2018, when Heard County won Class 2A.)
“It says as much about last year’s team as this year’s, but with the two people that finished ahead of us last year (state finalists Worth County and Toombs County) moving up in classification, and with us returning so many of our skill-position players, I understand how that might happen. It’s something we’ve talked about with our kids, telling them that pressure is a privilege, and we want to be at a place where people expect big things. We’re also working on trying not to make it a big deal for us, but embracing the fact that we want to be up there. But every team is a new team.”
2. How would you describe this year’s Heard County team?
“The biggest thing that every team has to have is its own identity. We make that clear at Heard County. We call this team ‘Team 54.’ It has to find its identity compared to Team 53. We have to replace (region) defensive player of the year Max (Lassiter, Shane’s son) and other key contributors. We’re not asking people on defense to replace those people on production individually. We’re using the Moneyball approach. We’re asking people to replace their production as a team. We’re going to rely on the offense a big bit early because those faces are back. Whenever you have a guy pulling the trigger at quarterback (Tisdale) who is a four-year starter, that gives you a sense of reassurance. We have all of our skill guys back on offense. We have some guys to replace up front on both sides. It’s going to take us a while to find our identity with this team.”
Note: Lasseter commented further on Tisdale, who is committed to Memphis, saying: “He is a running back that can also throw the football. He has elite speed, he’s super strong, and then, of course, he has an elite throwing arm. I think whenever he’s on the move and having to play backyard football, that’s when he’s at his best.”
3. The progress your program has made the past few seasons, going from 6-6 teams in 2021 and 2022, to 4-7 in 2023, to now 9-3 and 13-1, does this remind you of the run up to the 2018 championship team, which also steadily got better before winning it all?
“Everything is almost identical. In 2015 and 2016, we had a group that took some lumps but had to grow up with on-the-job training. In 2017, we got all the way to the state semifinals and lost at home to Hapeville Charter, (Heard lost to Toombs County at home in the 2025 semifinals.) Then in 2018, they were all seniors. We lost a couple of good players, but we had a great nucleus coming back, similar to what we have now. There’s no substitute for experience. This does have a similar feel to it.”
4. Tough first game against Central, a top-10 team from a higher classification. How did that game come about?
“Coach (Umbrah) Brown and myself do a shared radio show on Tuesday nights, so we see each other on Tuesdays, and we have scrimmaged the past two years. It’s a simple fact that they’ve been really good, and it was hard for us to find games with everybody we had coming back. We didn’t have a bunch of people lining up to play us. So being 20 minutes apart (from Central) and both of us looking for a game, it was just a good situation for both of us, including financially. As a head coach, I have a theory that if we have three non-region games, we should have one that we should win, one that we should lose and one that’s a tossup. This is one we know is going to be a challenge.”
Note: Gradick Sports tapes on Tuesdays with coaches from Heard County, Central, Carrollton, Bowdon, Haralson County, Villa Rica and Temple. The show is broadcast on Fridays.