Putnam County (2-2) will take on Josey (1-3) Friday in Augusta for its second-straight region game.
• Series History: Putnam County leads, 6-0.
• Last Meeting: Putnam County defeated Josey 40-0 in 2022. The Josey Eagles have had it rough as of late following their season-opening win on Aug. 19 over Savannah.
In the last three weeks, Josey has lost to the Academy of Richmond County (43-0), Glenn Hills (12-8) and Westside (49-6). So, the Eagles are hoping to rebound against the War Eagles on Friday.
Putnam head coach Joel Harvin has a lot of respect for Josey and new head coach Lawrence Pinkney.
“They’ve got a really good quarterback (Davion Herrington) that is athletic. If he gets to the edge, he is very capable of scoring and so we’re going to have to do a good job of keeping him contained. Trying to limit his touches as much as we can,” Harvin said. “Other than that, they’ve got some big kids on both sides of the ball upfront. And defensive back-wise, they fly around, man.”
Herrington leads an offense that is averaging only 10.6 points per game. The Eagles have struggled to move the ball efficiently, so the War Eagles will try to keep that trend going Friday.
Josey easily could be 2-2 at the moment, but a tough loss to region rival Glenn Hills robbed the Eagles of that. The contest was a defensive battle in which neither team could move the ball much. Josey senior running back Maurice Holmes and senior Quashawn Mccladdie are also threats but need to step up. If the Eagles want to win, they’ll need all three leading the way Friday night.
Last week, Westside had two running backs, Jeanarion Kamga and Andre Morgan, run for over 100 yards. The Patriots combined for six rushing scores against an inferior Eagles’ defensive unit.
The focal point of Putnam’s offense is the run game, with it starting to pick up in the last two weeks. The War Eagles really have a chance to continue their success on the ground this week, too.
Putnam senior running back Kaleb Crawford and junior tailback Rashod Daniel are coming into their own. Also, quarterback Branan Griffin is starting to grip the offense better as each week passes.
Josey is a program with only nine wins since 2017 and Pinkney, a 2006 graduate, is trying to turn it around. He knows a lot about success as he won two national college titles with Florida.
Regardless, Harvin just hopes his team can limit the penalties this week.
“It’s going to be a challenge. We’re trying to stay focused and make sure that we have everything taken care of on our end,” Harvin said. “Eliminating penalties is important and we will go from there.”