A primer on the 2019 All-Central Georgia football team, presented by The Sports Report
For a variety of reasons, the All-Central Georgia team for the 2019 season is being presented much, much later than planned.
One reason is some interruptions from, well, life that were unrelated to The Sports Report. Life situations come first.
The process of maintaining The Sports Report, www.centralgasports.com, every day with so much local, area, and state news and the white-knuckle struggle to get information or wade through caffeinated social media offering takes more time than desired.
There’s also the struggle to squeeze basic program- and kid-promoting information from programs and folks, despite regular efforts and reminders. Fair number of places like keepings stats and information secret from the world, a double whammy when trying to brag on young ‘ns.
Thanks to the half-dozen teams that sent in info. Tis phenomenally appreciated.
And then basketball season picked up steam, pushing it back some more, toward early in the spring sport season.
Then, kaboom. COVID-19 took over our lives, only adding to more shuffling of plans.
So, finally, it’s here, better late than never, an April chance to revisit the 2019 season and the players and coaches who stood out a bit.
Resumes are huge
As usual, The Sports Report’s collection of names is more than, well, just a collection of names. The phone book is a collection of names that doesn’t tell you anything about those names. Choosing such teams without explaining why players were picked is absurd and almost useless. Lacks substance and an amount of legitimacy and accountability.
Last year’s had the evidence of why a player was picked. Seems fairly obvious that’s the only way to go: info and stats and explanations.
We’re about a meal, not a crouton-free small bowl of lettuce. We’re not about popularity contests or what fan base is all over social media votes. We are, though, about objectivity and research and answering questions.
We’re not about info-free shoutouts or social media hugs or brown-nosing or alma maters or butt-kissing or quotas or Tweets/Retweets as “coverage.”
Not every day – while informing you about a sports world that has not stopped even if the games have – or when picking such teams.
You make this team, you earned it, and we’ll tell people why you made this team and how you earned it. Debate away, but you better bring more than “my team” or “my guy” or a hate for a rival team.
Alas, this year’s presentation doesn’t have quite as much resume information as last year, a situation that won’t be repeated again. But those who made the teams? Rest assured, they’ve earned it, or at a minimum, are extremely defendable choices.
About the process
The All-Central Georgia teams again employs a unique policy, an expanded third team at all positions. Simply put, there is a bigger gap between third team and honorable mention than there is between third and second team, and second team and first team. Honorable mention will always be honorable, thus the first year of a cap on how many players make honorable mention.
Again, this is more than just a list to have a list, and simply making all-region doesn’t mean one makes a list. It’s not an infinite number, nor to serve as a participation trophy item.
Plenty goes into the research, but the all-over-the-place all-region teams makes the process tougher. There is also some flexibility because of the large absence of information available about players, especially special teams (abbreviated this year) and multi-purpose athletes.
Class 7-A remains a mess, with some participation trophy process going on. There is no first team, second team, or third team, just nine DBs, 10 LBs, five D-lineman (five? Really? Truly? That’s all?), seven WRs, seven RBs, two QBs, one TE, and 13 O-linemen.
Oy.
Go ahead, coaches, and join the world and break it up. Even if just a first and second team, and no honorable mention, break it up and do it a little bit more like it should be done.
GISA was an equal mess with regions and all-state.
All-state is just a list of names and schools, and everybody has multiple positions listed. So who are the first team offensive linemen in AAA? Can’t tell you, because there are five players as OL/DL and three as OL.
Of the 32 AAA players listed, and it’s just a list, more than half are listed at two positions (excluding one kicker and a player with no position listed). That many two-way all-staters?
Kind of leaves out some kids, it seems.
The GISA regions are hard to take seriously – sorry, folks, but that’s reality – because GISA has been so weakened by departures. All-region teams from regions with three teams? And again, most listed at two positions?
One AAA region has only 20 players, another 33. Not much legitimacy or consistency, when a little more time could have been taken to get both.
Nevertheless, a few months later than desired and long days and late nights of wading through thousands of numbers, the 2019 All-Central Georgia football teams. Enjoy.