Putnam County will open up the season with Baldwin High on Friday night at Al Reaves Stadium.
The Braves faced Class AAA powerhouse Peach County last week in their season opener.
The Trojans from Ft. Valley defeated Baldwin 50-20 at Braves Field. So, head coach Jesse Hicks’ squad will be hungry for a victory after last week’s defeat to open up the season.
Putnam County had a bye during Week 1. The War Eagles spent their off week trying to clean up things after struggling with Greene County in a scrimmage two weeks ago. Pope hopes the War Eagles can write their wrongs during actual live game reps on Friday night.
“We really had a lot to fix after the scrimmage. We really focused on that,” Pope said.
“We had so many false start penalties. We also had seven procedure calls on offense.
We only got to play a half, but it was really, really sloppy. … Glad it was a scrimmage.”
The War Eagles practiced special teams during their bye week. They also used that time to work on improving other parts of their game, including perfecting their snap counts.
“It all starts with the coaches. The grown folks,” Pope said.
“We had to do a self-check. It starts with me. The way we practiced. And we kind of played like we had practiced.
We came back and challenged our players on picking up the tempo at practice. We went back to what we were used to doing last week. This week has been much better. That doesn’t mean you’re always going to play better, but at least we practiced better than we had leading up to the scrimmage (against Greene) anyway.”
According to the Georgia High School Football History Association, the War Eagles and Braves haven’t faced each other since 1977. The series is also tied 3-3-1.
Although the two programs haven’t played in 45 years, they are very familiar with each other. Putnam County and Baldwin have participated in several 7-on-7 camps over the last couple of years together, according to War Eagles’ head coach Shaun Pope.
“Coach (Jesse) Hicks does a phenomenal job,” Pope said.
“They’re going to be coached up, hard-nosed and are going to play extremely hard. They’re big and are (very) physical.
Their running back (Micah Welch) gets mentioned a lot, but they’ve got several other (offensive) weapons as well.
We have to be ready to play football.”
Welch is a junior that had a stellar sophomore campaign for Baldwin in 2021. The fourstar running back had over 1,000 yards last season. Welch also has scholarship offers from Georgia, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Ole Miss and N.C. State, among others.
He will be the highlight of the Braves’ offense, but as Pope mentioned, they have a few other playmakers as well.
Baldwin junior starting quarterback Solomon Burney also returns. Senior wide receiver Armontae Palmer is also a big, physical presence.
Baldwin will be looking to limit a War Eagle offense after giving half 50 to Peach County. The Braves’ still have a stout defense, which is led by Jermon Simmons, Nassir Robinson and Omarion Fraley. They will anchor that side of the ball for Baldwin.
Putnam County is still cleaning up things before opening kickoff, but has been also working on its matchup against the Braves, Pope said.
He just wants to make sure the War Eagles are focused on the task at hand first, which is to “get better for themselves.”
“The first thing we need to do is clean up Putnam. We can’t make the same mistakes we made in the scrimmage game,” Pope added. “It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, if we make those mistakes (the results won’t be pretty) We’ve got to clean that up.”
The War Eagles and their coaches run drills during a preseason practice in August.