Hey, Coach Holmes, you are entering your 22nd season with the Fighting Irish.

You've only missed the playoffs three times in that span.

It's incredible.

What did you learn from last season that you can carry over to this year?

Oh, you know, I think Canada, the big the biggest difference is is the returning of our quarterback, Mike O'Neill.

We broke him in last year after the season started as a sophomore.

And you know, you're going to go through those growing pains, especially in an offense like we run in.

And I'm a little bit excited right now after what we've gone through this summer, because for us, you know, we've been a running, running, running football team for the last probably six years.

And it's because we just didn't feel comfortable with being as balanced as we wanted to be.

And and Michael seems right now to be the the kid that's going to allow us to become a more balanced offensive football team.

So how have spring and summer been as you've been getting this more balanced offensive approach and defensively, what's it been looking like out there in the middle Georgia?

Well, I think we've had a real good spring and a summer.

I'm very, very excited.

You know, we've got the largest number of kids out football that we've had in double.

And I think in my 22 years where we're in the low eighties and the number of kids that are out for football and and that's a huge number really, for a school with, you know, 550, 575 kids.

You're running somewhere in the 20 to 25% of your male population out football.

So that that's been really exciting for us.

But more than anything on that is the fact that our kids have been attending all of our summer workouts and about a 95% rate.

So they're they're encouraging us about their desires to be a good football team by showing up work.

Yeah, that is a lot of encouragement for the upcoming season and years to come.

So it's a long road to December.

What's your schedule looking like?

Your regions schedule region to single-A Division one.

How is that all shaping up?

Well, you know, I think we play in and what a lot of people probably also consider they tough is if not, it's certainly in the top two four toughest regions in the state of Georgia classifications.

We've got Waynesboro turning and they've got all of their skilled people back other than one young man.

And obviously they played for the state championship and they want our region last year.

So they'll be a heavy favorite going into the season I think.

And then Belle and Laster in the program over Blackley County, as always, playing deep into the playoffs.

They do a tremendous job.

Jefferson County's made a change in their head coach.

They brought in the guy that used to be the defensive coordinator for Joe Ingram in Washington County.

So there will be some changes there and we don't know what they expect.

But I know if you were and Joe's on our staff now, if he were on that staff, we always felt like that was a very physical, hard nosed group of guys in Sanders Bill that you were going to line up with.

And I think that's what you can expect out of Jefferson County.

You've got East Large, which again is, you know, our cross-town rival and always a very athletic football team that that gives you all you want.

So you know, and then for us we opened with Wilkinson County, you know, sort of a cross county line match up, which is huge.

But we're playing Lamar County.

I think they're ranked pretty high this year.

We've got Charlton County out of the single-A that's ranked in the top four or five in single-A.

We've got matter who beat us twice last year and they've made a coaching change.

They brought in Coach Shull, so they're going to probably go to more of a spread open, wide, wide open type offense.

And then we play ECI.

So it's to me a very competitive schedule along with Dooley County, which is also ranked and got one of the top quarterbacks in the state of Georgia this year.

You got to talk to that schedule maker, Roger.

Yeah, I don't know who's doing it, but they're they must be getting old and not paying attention What everybody's got coming back.

Let me ask you about your team really quickly.

And it's our recruiting question that we ask.

We we know that there are players there that are getting looks that are getting recruited because, you know, they come to you and they look at your athletes and they know that you're a destination When it comes to what we like to do with the Make that Kid an offer segment when it comes to our recruiting coverage, is there anybody that, for whatever reason there are to whatever isn't getting the looks that you think they should get coming into the 23 season?

Who would fit make that kid an offer for you?

Well, can I can I give you two names?

Yes.

Number one, we've got a young man that plays outside linebacker for us.

He's about six one and a half, about 195.

And he ran for five eight electronic at camp.

So a young man named Cornelius Rozier, he plays tight end for us.

He plays outside linebacker in our four three.

He's a young man and just continue to get better.

But he has all the measurables that colleges look for in the student athlete.

And then the other one is a young man named Maury Foster.

He's he's a running back outside linebacker DeMar is 510 195 which kind of fits that bill of being a recruiter able type running back top end speed is not where it needs to be, but he's got really good hands and and last year ran for over 1000 yards so good balance tough kid.

I think both of those may end up somewhere when it's all said and done.

What does football mean to your community?

Football is a lifeblood for the city of Georgia.

So when I came here 22 years ago, it was it was very, very evident.

This stadium here is beautiful.

Well, the history on that stadium is it wasn't built by the school system.

It wasn't built by tax dollars.

This stadium was built by men in the city of Dublin who went out and took personal notes and paid for it themselves to build this stadium.

And when you take that into account, that kind of shows you how important football is here.

I think it gives a lot of our players, parents and people some bragging rights when we're pretty good, but they also are not very good.

They can turn it around and they want to know what's wrong with us.

I still got to get out there to that Shamrock Bowl.

All right, Coach.

Well, I've got one more bonus question for you.

A bonus question, Would you mind sharing a funny coaching moment or a funny coaching memory, a gameday tradition or a game day superstition that you like?

Oh, my goodness.

You know, I guess the biggest game day superstition for me is as I always type up my play sheet on Friday morning.

I probably never look at it on Friday night, but I always go in and I type my play call sheet up on Friday mornings and there's a playlist I guess, that somebody put together from May 20 years ago.

Then whenever I'm typing that up on Friday mornings, I always turn this.

I think, Oh, you got to name a song after week after week.

So maybe, maybe that's a superstition.

I don't know.

But you know, that's probably one of the things that that's routine for me to do on a game day.