By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

            There’s a first time for everything, and not all firsts are necessarily good.

            Dublin head football coach Roger Holmes has never been involved in a team getting out of a game, but that changed this spring.

            Dates and scheduling issues involving the Macon Touchdown Club’s Middle Georgia Kickoff Classic came to light in April when contracts were re-sent. There became a scheduling conflict – see related story – that couldn’t be resolved and keep the same four teams – Dublin-Tattnall and Northside-Peach County, at Mercer – playing again at the same location.

            The Touchdown Club had to find an alternative, and now has Southwest playing Westside and Baldwin battling Washington County.

            Northside and Peach County will still play, at Northside.

            Dublin and Tattnall? Not happening. Why it’s not happening is something of a semantical “he said-he said” situation.

            The teams were the first game in last year’s Classic, the third edition of the event. The Irish led 35-0 at halftime last year en route to a 55-0 win, and went on to finish 11-2 and reach the Class AA quarterfinal.

          The Trojans started off 0-4, but rebounded nicely to win their 7-A sub-region and make the playoffs, losing to Wesleyan in the first round to finish 6-5.

          Holmes said it was he and Tattnall head coach Chance Jones who first saw the conflict with the scheduling of the Kickoff Classic. The club had again scheduled the game for the second week of the season, but a GHSA shift in when the first week was – a week later – changed when the second week was.

          The teams knew about the change, the Touchdown Club didn’t, and found out in mid-April. Weeks of exploring options to keep the same format in some form or fashion were unsuccessful.

          Along the way, Holmes said that one topic in those conversations with Jones that came up was the desire of Tattnall to get out of the game against Dublin. Holmes said it became an issue while the Touchdown Club was still looking for a way to keep the same four teams, who combined for a very successful and money-making event last year.

          Northside and Peach County both reached the finals in their respective classifications, and both return plenty of players. Despite some holes to fill, Dublin has even more talent this year, with power-5 prospect like Romello Height, whose offers include Nebraska, Southern Cal, and Cincinnati, as well as most of the top teams in the SEC and ACC.

          Ja’Ques Evans is getting almost as much power-5 attention, and Ty McRae, Berrick Wadley, and Khalil White, among others, are getting looks as the Irish are a major stop for top-25 programs this spring and summer.

          Tattnall loses about eight offensive and five defensive starters from last year.

          The Touchdown Club emailed the four head coaches in early May to alert them that nothing could be worked out to keep Dublin, Tattnall, Northside, and Peach County playing on the same day at Mercer, and Club officials said nobody from Tattnall had brought up getting out of playing Dublin.

          Holmes said Jones told him the higher-ups at Tattnall were not interested in playing Dublin in 2019, period. The GHSA was contacted, and ostensibly ruled that because the dates in the contracts were different and that because any game between the two would not be at Mercer, that the contract was void, and thus there was no fine for Tattnall.

          “It’s fair to say I was disappointed,” Holmes said. “But I could see what they used to make the decision.”

          Holmes said he offered a few options, primarily that the teams employ the same procedures as for the Touchdown Club games – each team keeps pre-game ticket-sale revenue, and they split the gate –and play at either location. Holmes said he much preferred playing in Dublin, because the Irish had only four home games.

          Tattnall athletics director Joey Hiller sees things differently, except in one major case, which is the reason the Trojans and Irish aren’t playing.

          “It was that whole contract changed,” said Hiller, promoted from assistant athletics director to athletics director in February. “Our contract was set up to play Dublin at Mercer for two years in a row as part of the Kickoff Classic with the Macon Touchdown Club.”

          Hiller said Tattnall made $15,000 from last year’s game, a substantial boost from a normal home game, and primarily because of the crowd for Class 6A Northside and Class 3A Peach County. Teams got 1,000 tickets to sell, and they kept the proceeds from those sales, and walk-up ticket revenue was split between the four teams and the Touchdown Club, which uses the game as a fund-raiser for scholarship money it doles out yearly.

          Hiller knows that Dublin and Tattnall benefitted exponentially last year, courtesy of Northside and Peach County. He had anticipated a repeat financial performance, as well as the experience.

          “Being on Mercer’s campus, getting that college feel,” Hiller said. “Our kids experienced that. Now all of a sudden, there’s no Mercer, and there’s no money. So the contract changed. That contract was null and void the minute it couldn’t be played at Mercer and there was no payday at the end of it.

          “Those are the reasons we wanted to play. It didn’t really matter who we played. We were playing at Mercer, which was a big deal, and there’s a big payday at the end of it. That’s a big deal.”

          Hiller said the only option offered from Dublin was playing in Dublin, which was a non-starter for Tattnall.

          So the decision to not play Dublin at all left both teams with an open date, about three months before the season openers.

          “I’m not happy about it at all,” Holmes said.

          Interpretations notwithstanding, the Irish and Trojans have found opponents.

          Dublin will host Suwannee, a Class 5A team from Live Oak, Florida, on Aug. 23. The Bulldogs, a school about twice the size of Dublin, went 6-5 last year,

          Tattnall will host Central Fellowship, a member of the Georgia Independent Christian Athletic Association (GICAA), a group in which Hiller’s predecessor, Todd Whetsel, is taking over as the executive director. But that game will take place on Oct. 25, between playing Stratford and FPD. The Trojans will leave an open date on Aug. 30, and open with Our Lady of Mercy on Aug. 23.

          CFCA’s final year in the GISA was 2013-14. Tattnall, Mount de Sales, and Stratford left the GISA for the GHSA in 2014-15. Finding information past the previous season on the GICAA website is impossible, so determining CFCA’s record since the move is difficult. The Lancers went 7-6 last year in a schedule that included GISA opponents, like Westfield (the Hornets won 49-13).

          Hiller said that was a better option than what was offered by Holmes in mirroring the Touchdown Club process.

          “I think Tattnall is going to have a good crowd at a Tattnall home football game regardless of who we’re playing,” he said. “Central Fellowship is local, so they’re going to bring people, because it’s convenient, and the money that we’ll make on our concessions would probably equal or surpass us playing at Dublin.”

          Hiller didn’t dance around the reality of last year, and that there was still a gap between the teams. And both of those components were likely to lead to a sparse Trojan contingent heading down I-16.

          But he said that the contract was the only consideration in not playing Dublin.

          “Absolutely we wanted to play Dublin at Mercer and have a big payday at the end of it,” he said. “That’s what we signed up for. That was the contract originally. Had the contract remained exactly the same, Tattnall would be playing Dublin at Mercer this year.

          “Had the contract not changed, we would be playing Dublin and putting our best foot forward.”