Storied football power rebounds from worst season since 1956 with 3-0 start

COMMERCE — Mojo rediscovered.

That’s the best way to describe the scene as Commerce entered the fourth quarter of its 51-0 win over Greene County Friday night. Backups were checking into a game that would soon become a 3-0 start for Commerce, already surpassing its win total from last season.

Leading 44-0 entering the final quarter, the Tigers weren’t relaxed. Ray Lamb Stadium hit a new energy level.

Strobe lights flashed. The ominous LED green eyes on the Tiger sign commemorating state championships glowed next to the scoreboard.

Commerce’s fourth quarter anthem, Waka Flocka Flame’s “Grove St. Party,” blasted: It’s a party, it’s a party, it’s a party.

The defense took the field dancing.

“We preach it every day that we party in the fourth quarter,” said senior linebacker Caden McWilliams, who was part of the midfield flash mob. “When it gets to that fourth quarter, we all know what’s coming. We’re going to party.”

To Commerce, “Grove St. Party” isn’t just another stadium song. It’s a daily reminder of the Tigers’ mentality as they try to become one of Georgia’s top small-school programs again.

Commerce divides every workout and practice into four quarters, and before the final quarter, the team always plays that song.

“It’s bigger than (dancing going into the fourth quarter),” second-year Commerce coach Lenny Gregory said. “We lost several games last year in the fourth quarter, and so our whole offseason has been, ‘We’re going to turn it up in the fourth quarter.’”

A year ago, Commerce started 0-3 for the first time in 15 years. Gregory’s Tigers lost their first eight games and finished 2-8, the program’s worst record since 1956.

Tactical changes caused much of Commerce’s struggles last season, according to Gregory, who is best known for coaching a Travis Hunter-led Collins Hill team to a state championship. The longtime Georgia high school coach brought a pass-heavy offensive style to a Commerce program built on old-school, run-heavy schemes.

At a school of roughly 500 students, Commerce also graduated 22 seniors when Gregory arrived.

“You’re taking over a young football team that had mainly played JV, and you’re changing 99 years of offensive style, and you’re introducing the forward pass,” Gregory said.

Gregory recalled frustration inside and outside the program as the unusual amount of losses began to stack. But Gregory had a simple for solution for his team’s growing pains.

“I stayed in the boat,” he said. “My commitment to the kids was, ‘Guys, unless they pack up my bags and get the U-Haul, I ain’t going nowhere.’

“I think the kids saw how bought in I was to this place and that I wasn’t going anywhere.”

While Commerce finished 2025 with dominant wins over the bottom two teams in its region, the Tigers missed the playoffs for the first time since 1996.

“It was awesome to just finish the season going strong,” quarterback Tate Kirk said. “We were able to go into the offseason feeling victorious and knowing what we were fighting for.”

Gregory’s second offseason at Commerce was much smoother. The team didn’t graduate near as many seniors, and the Tigers were familiar with Gregory’s offense.

Gregory even brought in another former Class 7A state champion head coach in Richard Morgan, who won the title with Marietta the year before Gregory’s team did.

All that momentum led to Commerce’s motto for Gregory’s second season. It’s on T-shirts, banners and the gold-painted rock at the school entrance.

“RESTORE THE ROAR.”

It recognized where the program was and where it quickly needed to be.

“Obviously, we let Commerce down last year,” Gregory said. “We’ve got to live up to the standard of Commerce football.”

To McWilliams, restoring the roar is about having a “Commerce mentality,” the relentless physicality that the senior grew up knowing.