Today’s interviewee is Mill Creek coach Josh Lovelady, whose team is 2-0 after beating the No. 7 team in Class 7A on consecutive weeks – Parkview 43-10 and Norcross 41-13. It’s the first time that Mill Creek has beaten top-10 teams in back-to-back weeks since 2015, when the Hawks reached the state semifinals. Lovelady, a Gwinnett County native who has been with the Mill Creek program since its inception in 2004, was promoted to head coach in 2019.
Josh Lovelady, Mill Creek head coach
1. You’ve taken two pretty good teams to the woodshed the first two weeks. What has your team done particularly well that has allowed you to pull away and win comfortably? “We’ve played fast football on both sides of the ball. I think it starts with our defense. We’re not the biggest group. If you look at us, 10 of our 11 starters are under 200 pounds, but they fly around to the ball. They’re a very aggressive and hard-hitting group. We’ve given up minus-20 yards rushing. That’s not going to stay that way, but when you can shut down the run like that, it’s a huge advantage. Offensively, the past few years, we’ve been kind of built around the offensive line with play-action and running the football. This year, we have the most talented skill group we’ve ever had at Mill Creek. We’ve got a good quarterback in Hayden Clark who can use the tools in the toolbox to spread the ball out and attack defenses in different ways, whether it’s throwing or running the ball or using the running game. We have more balance. It’s a two-game sample, but so far, this is the most balanced we’ve been as far as run and pass.”
2. The Maxwell Ratings have you ranked No. 1 in Class 7A this week. What do you think of that? “Well, that’s flattering, but we’re far from being the No. 1 team. It’s so early. You’ve got a team in Parkview that’s starting six or seven underclassmen that didn’t look like underclassmen. You’ve got a Norcross team coming off a semifinal finish last season that again, has a ton of talent, but they’re young. Every year, teams have to worry about injuries, and now we have to worry about COVID, so any surprise in the score could be a lot of factors right now. I don’t put much stock in those rankings. It’s all about how you finish.”
3. Are you this much better than last season, or was the 2020 not so bad? People forget you took Grayson to overtime and played a tough schedule. “We did. We played lot of close games – Grayson, Norcross. Collins Hill was a close game. Those are three teams that were there at the end, but close doesn’t count. We had some kids that were put in situations. By the end of the season last year, we had eight freshmen or sophomores in our two-deep lineup. Those guys got some experience against some unbelievable talent. Our schedule was pretty tough. Iron sharpens iron.”
4. Is the difference in this year’s team mental, having more experience, or physical, that is, more talent? “That’s a tough question at this point. I think we have a better mindset. But it’s early. This team has not had to deal with the challenges of last year’s team. We had seven ACL injuries last year, all non-contact, and I’m talking about starters. That’s what forced our younger guys to play. Knock on wood, they haven’t had to respond this year to that kind of adversity. They had to learn some tough lessons. And we’re still doing that now. In the first game, we had 18 penalties. That’s sloppy football. We had to fix that. This game here, we had two turnovers in the first quarter that Norcross caused, and we helped them, and that put us in a hole. So we’ll see how this team responds, but I know they’re playing hard and physical right now and playing at a high level against some great competition.”
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