GMC Prep now hosting Twiggs for Homecoming

Published 2:35 pm Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Tropical Storm Helene has turned the back half of the 2024 high school football season into a bit of a jumble.

A long and winding road has altered GMC Prep’s week where it was originally scheduled to host Glascock County for Homecoming this Friday. Instead, it will be the Twiggs County Cobras making the trip to Milledgeville Friday for a 7:30 p.m. kick on Davenport Field.

Many teams across the state did not get to play their scheduled games last week after the storm wreaked havoc Thursday into Friday. Some contests were rescheduled while others were placed in limbo.

GMC Prep’s Sept. 27 game at Twiggs County at first got moved to Oct. 18 because the two teams shared a bye week. It was a perfect solution.

But the strong storm’s aftereffects are continuing to be felt.

Glascock, GMC’s original Homecoming opponent for this Friday, had to cancel due to the damage in its community. GMC head coach Gavin Tierce said Glascock coach Chris Kelley needed to drive to Madison just to get cell service in order to make the phone call to postpone.

That left the Bulldogs without an opponent for a second consecutive week. Tierce put some feelers out so his team would not be three weeks without a game following the Sept. 20 bye. One tentative plan fell through, and it was looking like GMC might not have a football game associated with Homecoming.

Then a call came through from Twiggs County head coach Roderick Cummings. Their school is out all week, so Tierce wasn’t considering them as an option. Plus, Twiggs already had Johnson County on the schedule for Friday, but Wrightsville got hit hard by Helene and the JoCo Trojans weren’t going to be ready.

“Twiggs called us and said they’re willing to play,” Tierce said. “He said they were willing to come to us for our Homecoming week in order to get a game in.”

So, the 0-5 Bulldogs are now set to face the 1-4 Twiggs County Cobras on Davenport Field Friday. Both teams will be looking to rid their minds of the distractions from the past week and get region play started on the right foot. GMC will travel to Twiggs next year, and possibly in 2026 as well, to make up for the Cobras coming to Milledgeville in back-to-back seasons.

As for the road past this Friday, the Georgia High School Association on Tuesday announced that the football season schedule has been adjusted to help account for what could be a messy few weeks. Originally the last Friday of the regular season was set for Nov. 1, but that date has been pushed back to Nov. 8 and the playoffs will begin the following week. The GHSA already had a playoff bye week built in the day after Thanksgiving on Nov. 29, so that has been erased with the shift.

Tierce said he’s unsure right now of how the rest of his team’s schedule will shake out. It will be dependent upon when opponents’ communities are able to bounce back from the powerful tropical storm.