If there’s one thing, above all else, that I will get my GPB colleague Hannah Goodin to remember for her days on this Earth, it will be how to say and spell the county seat of Long County.

I told Long County head coach Mike Pfiester that and I got a good laugh out of the deal.

I was doing the math since he and his staff showed up in town a few years ago. And the turnaround has been huge for a program that, in its early days, actually stopped playing varsity high school football two separate times. From 1987-89, and after Kevin Giddens coached for one season when the Blue Tide went 0-7, from 1991-2001 there was no “Football Fridays” kind of activity.

They had lost 50 straight by then.

After picking it back up, the school only won 28 games overall from 2002-20 while losing 39 of 40 before Pfiester took over in 2021. Since then, it has been a marked change. The Blue Tide have been in the playoffs for three straight seasons- losing in the first round each year, yes- but are out of the blocks at 3-0 in 2024.

Long County

Increased participation in the weight training program has been part of Long County's growth and success.

Credit: Mike Pfiester Facebook

Pfiester has won 20 games in three-plus seasons. If he keeps up this kind of pace, he’ll have more wins than the entire program history by late next year.

“I knew they had won 28 games when we took over. That number does stick in my head, yes,” Pfiester remembers. “It has been wild at times. I sometimes remind myself of that and there are things we still deal with that other schools and communities don’t when it comes to just day-to-day operations. That’s come from how the county itself has grown over time. But we all navigate them every day and we always come up with solutions.

“On the field, we are in a different place from when we first came here. There’s a consistency here now. When coaches and players show up, we expect to do things a certain way. If it’s Tuesday, that’s when we work on our ‘alley drill.’ If it’s Wednesday, we work on first and third down.” And the program is getting recognized...

Which means finding the 10th regular season game is now, officially, hard. Their region, after reclassification, is now nine teams full. You’re looking for one and ...  well...

“With the successes we’ve been having, folks aren’t as eager to play us as they might have been in the past,” Pfiester says. “We’re not quite ready for the big boys, yet, either. But having a nine-team region has helped with our schedule and it has created a hard time helping us fill out our schedule. Does that make sense?”

It does. And they’re out and running at 3-0 this season -- having to navigate early choppiness with the schedule and the calendar. They had a scrimmage cancelled, beat Vidalia in their only non-region game (still weird to type), had a bye week, and have also beaten Johnson-Savannah and Groves to get to their homecoming game this Friday with Liberty County.

With all the rain that’s being forecast, currently the entire Pfiester household has an eye on the skies -- one as a coach, one on the court, and one on the organizing committee. 

“Vidalia was a strong opponent,” Pfiester tells me. “They were a great first game to have. We lost a scrimmage and had a choppy start. We’re in a rhythm now and, hopefully, we can continue the trend.”

With these early-season successes and a region that Pfiester hopes will sort itself out with all the internal competition, there’s one thing (other than the skies at present) that he must watch ... the math attached to being a Triple-A classification school.

Edging closer to the seeding formula for the postseason, Class A through 3A must make sure the opponents they play are doing their part away from the time they play your favorite team now. Win when you don’t play me, please. Just win the rest of the time.

“The ‘point-playoff thing’ I think I have figured out,” he admits. “You’re looking at your opponent’s winning percentage and the GHSA is doing a really good job of giving us directions on how to apply it and how we look in the standings. You just have to make sure all the numbers are correct when you submit them and when others do it.”

Long County

Offensive coordinator Stevie Harrison (with baby Steele) has installed an attack that emphasizes the running game.

Credit: Mike Pfiester Facebook

Coach Pfiester admits he’s not good at math, but his Athletic Director is. And Pfiester looks at the math on Sundays like clockwork. But there will be something to look at come the postseason. How will the playoff grids look at 1 through 32? Will it be closer geographic matchups than it would have been if the region playoffs were set up like we’ll see in the three highest classifications? It makes being 1 through 16 all that more important in the seedings in Class A, 2A and 3A.

Which brings us back to homecoming at Long County this Friday night ...

Liberty County has the series advantage between these two schools, winning five of the six all-time and the games have been closer the last two. In 2022, Long County even got their first win in the series. And the Tide does it a little differently than most...

Well, a lot differently, at least on offense ... they’re old school ... and I mean “old school.”

They run the ball ... a lot ... out of a three-back T-formation set ... Click here to see an example:

“We’ve only thrown, maybe, ten passes all year. The one that we caught ended in a turnover,” Pfiester says. “None of our players care and none of them are asking ‘When am I getting my touches?’ The kids know the importance of this one, too, because we’re 3-0. When they want to go somewhere to do something, they go to Hinesville. So, we’re all looking at this one to be a very competitive game. We’re locked in and looking at perfecting our craft for Friday night.”

Oh ... and the answer from the top is: “Ludowici.”

That’s your county seat ...  

And we’ll follow along with the math as Long County keeps moving forward on the field and off...

Play it safe, everyone... I’ll talk to you soon!