HINESVILLE -- Wins were hard to come by on the gridiron for the Bradwell Institute Tigers this year as they finished the 2021 season with an 0-9 record, posting their second consecutive winless season.

But as head coach Deshon Brock came in from Mitchell County as the new sheriff in town ahead of the 2021, he knew that it would be a progress to return Tiger football back to glory.

He embraced it and took the job for an opportunity to return to where he calls ‘home.’

The season started with the Tigers falling to Westside Macon 35-10 and then being hit with a three-week layoff after COVID-19 outbreaks within the Liberty County School System.

And that would be indicative of their season’s hardships.

“We incurred some injuries early on from the summer,” Brock said. “We had some key players get injured and we thought we were going to be alright and get them back sooner than when we got them. Unfortunately, we didn’t get them back until the tail end of the season and them not being really available kind of hindered us on both sides of the ball as it pertains to depth and production.”

The Tigers still fought to have a chance for a win though.

They got the closest when they nearly defeated South Effingham in the regular season finale, faltering 28-22.

“We did not get the wins that we thought that we were going to get although I felt like we did get better,” Brock said of his team’s progression. “Week-to-week there was a game or two that I felt like we took a step backwards; mainly the Tattnall County game and also the Brunswick game where I felt like we didn’t meet the standard. But overall, I thought that we did get better and definitely saw what we need to make improvement in games moving into next season. They were a resilient group. I’m going to miss this senior class. They fought every game. They had a ‘no retreat, no surrender’ type attitude where they’re going to compete. That’s what we demanded from the opening bell until the ending quarter. I felt like the Richmond Hill game was one of the games I felt like we should’ve won. There were some games where some of the scores were kind of lopsided but early in the game all the way through halftime, we were in the game with opportunities to win. We just didn’t take advantage of the opportunities given to us and we fell short because we didn’t take care of our business.”

Brock wants his team to clean up their act and control their own destiny on the field by avoiding penalties and turnovers to give themselves a fighting chance at picking up victories.

“Untimely turnovers, penalties, different things putting us behind the chains that make it hard to convert on third down,” Brock said. “We have to clean up the penalties because they were costly in general. It kind of curtailed because we’ll get a big play taken away from us because of a hold or a false start. We had a couple of concentration drops when we’ll have receivers open on big third downs that would hit them in the hands, and we drop it. Just getting behind the chains in a couple games where we’re moving and that drive is a momentum killer and from that moment on, we are kind of working backwards against ourselves.”

On the bright side, the Tigers had a quadruplet of players make the All-Region 2-6A First Team for this past season: Michael Prince – Senior Running Back, Kamarion Melvin – Senior Tight End, Mikah Kent – Senior Defensive End, Eli Leiataua – Senior Middle Linebacker.

Leiataua also earned the region’s Defensive Player of the Year award, reeling in over 100 tackles.

“Those four guys are definitely the pillars of our team since I been here,” Brock said of his all-region players. “Those were the guys that you definitely know they’re going to be there everyday for the workout putting in that work. Eli Leiataua being the defensive player of the year, 118 tackles – everybody’s aware of him to the point where coaches tell me that they’re going to run away from him, and he still makes those amount of tackles. He still has that impact on a game. Great steward and role model for the kids behind him and a consummate professional on and off the field. Mikah Kent’s work ethic is tremendous. The sky’s the limit for this kid. 4.25 GPA. Everything you want in a student athlete, he is. Both of those guys have opportunities to play at the next level. We’re just trying to wait on the right fit and for people to pull the trigger. Offensively, we had Mike Prince who pretty much led us offensively especially on the ground with 600 yards on offense and roughly 750 total offense yards for us. He’s that workhouse with 17-20 carries a game. He did everything we needed him to do; in the trenches, get the tough yards, wildcat quarterback at times. K.J. (Melvin) was our leading receiver this year. He was selfless in the event of having to go down and putting his hand in the dirt in the trenches and blocking versus standing up being a receiver all day long like he was used to. He’s garnering some interest at the next level. We’ll probably have an open workout for him. I think someone is also going to pull the trigger on him whether it be D1-AA, D2, or D3. Hopefully we see all four of these guys play at the next level.”

Brock wants to remain an open book for players to come out and join the team.

As the season progressed, he allowed athletes to join the Tiger football program for the majority of the season and hopes for them to stick around.

“We left the door open for kids to come out almost for the entire season,” Brock said. “So, we had some athletes come out. The kids talk highly about the program and what we’re doing with the football program as it pertains to feeding them, the gear, the uniforms, how we practice, how we compete, and how we go about our day-to-day operations. Kids start getting interested. They end up coming out later in the season so we hopefully we get some more of those athletes that will help us going into the spring and transitioning into the summer and moving on to the season. It’s athletes walking around at Bradwell, and we want to get them to fall back in love with the game of football and dedicate themselves to getting better in that weight room as we move to a tough region. The weight room will be a priority.”

Middle school football players that are districted to go to Bradwell in high school have been reached out to with Brock trying to build up a feeder program and make relationships with Tigers to be.

The Tigers junior varsity team even had an eighth grader starting at quarterback for them over the duration of the season.

“We identify a couple of the eight graders that are supposed to transition to Bradwell leaving the middle school,” Brock said. “At the end of their season, they came up and got a little taste of what it is to play with us. One of the eighth graders, D.J. Newborn actually played JV quarterback the whole entire season, so he learns the season. So, he has an opportunity as an incoming freshman to maybe even compete for that starting job. We’re also trying to put down the offensive and defensive system so those kids come up learning that scheme because in all the major players like Lowndes, Valdosta, Lee County, Camden, this is what goes on at major programs and we aspire to be that and will be a major contender here shortly. We just got to start from the ground up.”

Since the season ended back in October, Brock has set his players free to rest up but will begin offseason activities once the new calendar year comes in.

“Once the season was over with, I wanted to give these guys a break and get away from the game of football and go enjoy yourself, your family, or dedicate yourself to your other sport,” Brock said. “All other that don’t play another sport, we’re going to start our offseason program on Jan. 10. Once the other kids in track, basketball, and baseball season is over, they’re going to come into the program. We have the first bulk of it to Jan. 10 until spring break. And the second tier is from spring break to until the start of spring. And then we have from spring until the end of the schoolyear for the third phase of it. We’re trying to find an opponent for the spring game and then we’ll go into the summer program to some contact camps to go against some other top tier competition and go back down to Camden and maybe try to jump in and try to get better and find out what our strengths and weaknesses are and correct our weaknesses to make them our strengths going into next season.”

Next season, the Tigers will be reclassified to 5A.

Though Brock was looking forward to returning to Region 2-6A, he’s up for the challenge with entering another competitive region.

“I didn’t really have a dog in the fight,” Brock said as he laughed. “Wherever the GHSA said we had to play, we had to play. I was kind of looking forward to returning to the current region we’re in because of familiarity with a year under your belt. You know what they have coming back and know what the expectation is. You know what you need to do to move forward to be successful in that conference. But we got dropped down to 5A and it’s a very competitive region top to bottom with Ware County, Coffee, Jenkins out of Savannah, Greenbriar, Statesboro, and then us. I do feel like we can be successful in this region. We just have to take care of our responsibilities as far as getting in the weight room and getting better in the offseason.”

Entering his second year as head coach at Bradwell, Brock holds 33-20 all-time coaching record, two region championships, four playoff appearances in five seasons.