Football: Falcons, Bulldogs stage rare Monday afternoon showdown

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — On typical Mondays, football teams are just beginning their preparation for the upcoming Friday game night.

Flowery Branch and Hart County, however, will be staging a rarity for most high school teams. The two teams will meet at Pete Herndon Stadium in Hartwell on Monday afternoon after postponing their matchup last week in the wake of the Apalachee school shooting.

The Bulldogs were forced to ask for the postponement due to a threat called into the school on Friday. The Falcons had several ties to Apalachee, including assistant coach and co-defensive coordinator Matt Rogers, who coached at Apalachee in 2023. Shayna Aspinwall, a teacher and head boys and girls tennis coach at Flowery Branch, was the wife of Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, who was one of four people killed in the shooting.

“It was the right call based upon the circumstances for them and for us as well,” Flowery Branch coach Jason Tester said. “We talked to (our) seniors, asked their thoughts on it, and they're like, they want to play, you know. I think that's the most important thing, is to honor the game and the kids that are playing it, the coaches and everybody involved. Monday was the day that we settled on.”

Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. instead of the normal 7:30 p.m. on normal game days.

But turning around three days later after taking essentially three days off in a sport that has highly regimented practice schedules will present some challenges.

“The only Monday thing that I've been a part of (on a Monday) as far as an actual game was on the scouting aspect of the old-school tiebreaker where they had the three team playoff on a Monday,” Tester said.

“Just the logistics of things. How many coaches do we have in the building between the high school and the middle school? What time do we get out? The team meal,” he said. “Obviously, we're going to have to get them out a little bit early. We'll have some meetings and walk through type stuff. But we're confident in our game plan so we decided to take the weekend off.”

A young Falcons team (1-2) has had a Jekyll-and-Hyde beginning to their 2024 campaign. They were routed 31-2 by Jackson County in their opener, rebounded with a solid 23-13 win over Habersham Central, and then were shut out again in a 10-0 loss to Forsyth Central last week (Aug.30).

Hart County (1-2) is coming off consecutive losses to Madison County and Lumpkin County by a combined 4 points. The interesting aspect for the Falcons is they have added an option element to their typical spread attack. 

There was a rumor they had gone full-blown triple option. Tester said don’t believe everything you hear.

“We've added a wrinkle, but to say that we've sold out and gone 100% into the triple option, that's not something that you can do overnight,” he explained. “We have some option stuff in our offense, out of our base stuff. But we have not fully committed to the triple option. That's not what we're doing.

“Looking at our personnel and how young we are, (junior) Riley Bourrie is our quarterback. He's an athlete. He's earned the starting spot and we’re trying to feature him in the best way that we can to utilize his abilities.”

Friday, Monday, whatever day they had decided to play, Tester said building momentum for what is expected to be a fierce Region 8-4A schedule is paramount. They will still get their week off before opening region play on Sept. 20 on the road at No. 9 Eastside.

The Falcons are a 4-point underdog coming into their matchup with Hart County. But Tester said they aren’t focused on point-spreads.

“Our kids don't approach it with an underdog mentality,” he said. “We approach it one week at a time. We look for growth in our kids. We’re extremely proud of how they have battled back after that Week 1 disappointment. But at the end of the day, it all boils down to execution. That’s our focus right now.”