Class 2A blog: Championship preview

Who will win? Maxwell’s Projections tab Thomasville a 7-point favorite, forecasting a 21-14 score. It’s the same touchdown margin the Bulldogs beat the Cane by earlier this season. Weather will likely be a factor Friday, as there’s a 70% chance of rain in Atlanta on game day.

For years, the Bulldogs and Cane have faced off with the implications of a region championship but this time a state title is on the line. So, the coaches — Fitzgerald’s Tucker Pruitt and Thomasville’s Zach Grage — will go back to the drawing board yet again to find an edge over an opponent they know inside-out.

“I think now you actually need to turn over even more stones,” Grage said. “You try to look for little nuances. You go back to maybe even last year when we played them just to see if there’s something we can try and pick up on, because we have played them so close. You’re just trying to steal that point, steal that possession.”

Said Pruitt, “I think there is a lot of familiarity there with our kids and understanding their schemes, offensively and defensively. They’ve got a great team. They kind of do what they do and they’re really good at it. So, we’re familiar with what they do and I think it’s going to come down to who’s better on Friday.”

Earlier this season, the Cane jumped to an 8-0 lead that held through most of the first half. The Bulldogs got on the board just before halftime to pull within 8-7, then scored the only points of the second half with 5:03 left in the third. The go-ahead touchdown was set up by a Fitzgerald muffed punt. Twice the Cane had a chance to score in the waning minutes, but both times the Bulldogs defense flexed, stopping the Cane on fourth down from the Thomasville 15, then posting three consecutive sacks on Fitzgerald’s final possession to seal the win.

So, there’s not a lot separating the two teams.

“We had a lot of missed opportunities,” Pruitt said. “We definitely had our chances...This will be a brand new game at a brand new place, and two teams that I think have both gotten better since then, but I would expect this to be another slugfest.”

Fitzgerald: Finding their way with a reloaded roster

It was just last year that the Cane were in the championship, where they lost to Callaway. That team’s offense revolved around Chance Gamble, a Swiss army knife that lined up at quarterback, running back and receiver. He graduated, so the Cane were starting from scratch. Making matters worse was an injury at the quarterback position in Game 1 that left them five weeks without their starter, Sultan Cooper.

It had been mostly a season-long experiment on offense, with some tweaks made to the line, inserting three sophomores into the starting lineup, as they worked on executing out of a single-wing T formation.

By the time the playoffs rolled around, their identity was established.

“I would say the offense has improved — specifically the offensive line,” Pruitt said. “When they play well, you get to see how good our running backs are.”

In the Cane’s 27-6 semifinal win over Swainsboro, they rushed for 297 yards, led by DeNorris Goodwin’s 143.

The reason the Cane were able to remain a title contender while finding their way offensively was the defense, led by Florida commit EJ Lightsey, a 3-star linebacker. Despite having the second-highest strength-of-schedule rating in 2A according to MaxPreps, the Cane defense came into the playoffs giving up an average of just 13.1 points. They held four ranked teams — 1A’s top-ranked Irwin County, 3A’s Pierce County, then No. 8 Dodge County and then No. 3 Thomasville — well below their season scoring average.

In the playoffs against No. 9 Dodge County, Fannin County, No. 5 Putnam County and No. 10 Swainsboro, they’ve allowed an average of 8.25 points.

“Defensively, we’ve played well all year long,” Pruitt said. “There’s been a lot of consistency on that side of the ball. We’ve got some good players over there. They’re very disciplined and play extremely hard.”

That the championship will be played hours away from home in Atlanta isn’t a disadvantage for Fitzgerald. Perhaps most impressive about the Cane’s schedule is they’ve played the majority of it on the road. They’ve played just five games in Fitzgerald, and Friday will mark road game No. 10.

“We’re not a bunch that minds going on the road,” Pruitt said. “We actually like it. We play well away from home...We’re going to have to do that again this week.”

If the Cane beat Thomasville, it will extend the theme of the teams alternating wins in the series to seven. It will also be the Cane’s first title since 1948. They’re 0-6 in title games since then, including 0-3 since 2015.

Pruitt said winning a title would mean, “Everything.”

“The reason I took this job is because I wanted to see Fitzgerald get over the top,” he said. “We’ve had our chances...It would mean everything to our community. They’re starving for it. We’ve been a very good program, won a lot of games and made a lot of runs. But we haven’t been able to put the exclamation point down or kick the door in. This is another opportunity. We need to make sure we have an outstanding week of practice and we take advantage of this opportunity.”

Thomasville: White steps up big for offense

With Ronnie Baker graduating from last year’s quarterfinalists, the Bulldogs were wanting Shannen White to step into the quarterback role and flourish. He’d missed all of last season with a torn ACL, so he was a question mark. As the season went on, however, he emerged as a leader, allowing Grage to expand the offense to the point where he was just as effective as Baker was.

“He’s been a difference maker both running and passing,” Football Friday Night Radio Show host Chris Beckham said. “He’s been very efficient and hasn’t turned the ball over. That’s been the key spot that Thomasville needed some answers to and Shannen White has definitely answered those questions.”

On the season, he’s 106-for-190 passing for 1,885 yards and 23 touchdowns to six interceptions and has 81 carries for 463 yards and eight touchdowns.

Had White not suffered an ankle injury that knocked him out of the Bainbridge game on Sept. 10, which also caused him to miss the next week at Oconee County, maybe the Bulldogs are sitting at 14-0. They lost 20-6 to Oconee County, and White returned for their next game and they haven’t lost since.

They led 2A with MaxPreps’ highest strength-of-schedule rating, with four of their five non-region games coming against ranked teams — 1A Public’s top-ranked Brooks County, 4A’s No. 10 Cairo and No. 8 Bainbridge, and 3A’s No. 2 Oconee County.

They’ve dominated on both sides of the ball in the playoffs against Washington County, Heard County, Rabun County and Callaway, averaging 41 points while allowing just 13.25 points. Twenty-five points is the closest an opponent has come, matched by Rabun County and Callaway.

Now the only opponent standing in the Bulldogs’ way is a Fitzgerald team they’ve already beaten, but that doesn’t mean they’re champions yet.

“We can’t call Robin Hines and say, ‘Hey, we already beat them, go ahead and give us the trophy,’” Grage said. “We’ve still got to go out there and play our game.”

For this final week of preparation, Grage and the Bulldogs will take the same approach as Week 1 in terms of staying true to their way of playing, stubbornly refusing to make concessions based on what a given opponent presents.

When the talk was about Gunner Stockton and Rabun County, Grage insisted his team was playing only against itself. When the talk shifted to redemption against a Callaway team that ended their season last year, again, Grage insisted, the Bulldogs were playing themselves.

“If we get beat and play our best you tip your cap,” Grage said. “But I don’t ever want to leave a game and think, ‘Man, we got out of our identity.’ We’ve done that too many times my previous years here.”

Like Fitzgerald, the Bulldogs have gone ringless for decades, last winning a title in 1988. To the players, that might as well be 1948, because they weren’t around just the same as Cane players weren’t when Fitzgerald last won.

Grage’s message to his team is they have an opportunity to cement themselves as one of the greatest teams in a program where history matters — their inaugural season was 1914.

“You have an opportunity to feel what greatness is,” Grage said. “When you’re a champion, nobody can take that away from you — ever. It’s something you’ll be able to tell your kids about. We’ve got all these alumni coming back from ‘88, and people that have played for Thomasville and have that pride, and I said, ‘You guys have the right to be those guys.’ When I’m still here in 15 years, I can call the folks from the ‘21 team, and have Shannen White, Jacob Tyson and Ty Anderson come back and talk to the guys that are on the next state championship run.”

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