It’s that time of year…

And by “that time” I mean football season…

It’s an animal that never changes and only gets more intense…

National Signing Day is officially behind us which means that optimism strikes eternally on the college level and high schools that are saying “good bye” to their senior players have to figure it out all over again.

But the biggest word is coming from all the coaching vacancies that are being filled in some big programs… Places like Warner Robins, Valdosta, and Carver-Columbus have:
1) Shocked us by actually having openings and,
2) Getting big names to fill the holes…

Carver picked up college coach Reggie Barlow to take over for Joe Kegler. Valdosta had it down to two names to replace Rance Gillespie- who moved on to Georgia Southern. They, eventually, would promote Defensive Coordinator Alan Rodemaker as Valwood’s Ashley Henderson signed a contract extension. And Bryan Way’s retirement led to Houston County assistant Mike Chastain being approved as the new Demons head coach.

It is interesting to note, though, that Chastain is a Northside grad. And, for those of you that don’t know, his wife, Carrie, was named “Teacher of the Year” over at Veterans High.

Talk about tangled webs…

Now, HoCo head coach Von Lassiter has an interesting decision to make for his Offensive Coordinator/QB Coach replacement for Jake Fromm’s senior season for the Bears.

Another interesting tale comes out of North Forsyth…

Robert Craft, a title-winning coach at North Florida Christian, decided to come up to the way-northern suburbs of Atlanta for his new job. He said it was going to take a very special job for him to move- and this one, for Georgia football fans, is one of those fly-below-the-radar hires we need to pay attention to for the 2016 season.

Steve Price got promoted to be the new head coach at NFC… for those of you keeping track and writing everything down in pen as go forward.

Craft enters a region that will be in a tough region that is all Forsyth County schools- and we saw last season that South Forsyth can give even the national champs headaches at home.

The other element to look at early on here in winter time is scheduling- especially in south Georgia. The new, highest region (7A or “Super 44” which is more teams than that) has teams in some instances that only have four teams in them.

If that’s the case, only three teams make the playoffs automatically and the fourth COULD make it based on power rankings alone. It also creates headaches for teams trying to build their non-region schedules. Tift, as an example, is having to play games in Orlando against a team from Colorado, Fitzgerald, and
Parkview to try and fill out a grid.

And Colquitt is not even getting phone calls returned, but the game set for September 9th against Roswell will BE HUGE!!!

We all know why that is…

Faithful reader… it’s time for your question of the week:

“What team are you looking forward to watching the most leading into the 2016 season?”

And this is, strictly, an off-season viewing question when we get around to spring football activities to answer some of your early questions...

Let me know here on the page down below, on Twitter, or on the GPB Sports Facebook page. Like us. Friend us and be a part of the conversation…
Follow me on twitter @OSGNelson or on Instagram at jon.f.nelson and we’ll talk all winter long…

Play it safe, everyone… I’ll talk to you soon!
But, as we move on in the non-football playing months (after Game 3 of the "War of the Borders" series is done in Folkston), here's a little something to keep us moving...