GMC News
GMC edges Navarro to win 2003 opener
A strong defense helped Georgia Military College overcome its offensive mistakes and open the 2003 season with 19-14 victory against Navarro College on Saturday.
Bert Williams, Bulldog head coach, said on Monday that he was pleased with his team’s overall performance.
“There were certain rough areas,” he said. “But a lot of things went very well for our freshman.”
Asked if he was frustrated at all by his team’s failure to score in the red zone, Jeff Tatum, GMC’s offensive coordinator who was recently named 2002 junior college offensive coordinator of the year, said that Navarro’s adjustments on defense helped confuse the relatively inexperienced Bulldogs.
“The schemes they gave us were a bit different than what we had worked on in practice,” Tatum said. “The changes they made hurt us.”
Williams agreed.
“Whenever we got inside the 10, they threw a different goal-line defense against us than we expected,” he said. “When they pack it up inside like that, we’ve got to be able to execute.”
Despite struggling to score, GMC moved the ball well all day. Newcomers Greg Pruit and Brent Thomas each had over 100 yards of combined offense.
“All of our guys ran the ball well,” Williams said. “We put ourselves in good field position we just didn’t capitalize.”
Williams blamed the lack of scoring on what he called “hustle mistakes.”
“A lot of times our guys were trying to make something happen,” he said. “I’d rather have those kind of mistakes than poor execution.”
On the other side of the ball, the Bulldogs’ defense was dominant all afternoon. GMC forced Navarro to punt on seven of its 12 possessions and caused three turnovers. Williams pointed out that the story behind the stats was that there were only three players in the lineup Saturday who played on the GMC defense last season.
“We almost had a totally new group on defense,” he said. “And they did a tremendous job.”
The Bulldogs return to action on Thursday night against West Georgia jayvee at Davenport Field. Kick-off is 7 p.m.
To reach sports writer Keich Whicker, call him at (478) 453-1465.
