COVINGTON, Ga. — Less than 24 hours after the Alcovy Tigers fell 18-0 to Grovetown in both teams’ Region 3-AAAAAA opener — the Tigers’ second straight shutout loss — head coach Chris Edgar dismissed offensive coordinator Damoio’n Wright from his duties, effective immediately and will assume play-calling duties himself, starting Thursday against Lakeside.
And although Edgar said he was limited in discussing specifics, he also stated there was no ill will toward Wright, who initially came on staff two seasons ago as offensive line coach. Rather, he called it something that had to be done for the good of the team.
“It’s a personnel issue that I can’t really get into,” Edgar said. “But at the end of the day, I’d like to thank coach Wright for his service to our team. But I felt like I had to make a move to keep our goals and the things we want to accomplish intact. I wish coach Wright the best of luck and I really do hope he’ll go on to find that place that he can be successful in.”
Alcovy debuted a bit of a shift in offensive philosophy for Friday night’s game at Grovetown, opting for more of a wing-T look to try and better accentuate the Tigers’ talents at tailback. And while Edgar said the whole thing wasn’t a complete wash, he also takes the entire blame for the team’s lack of offensive success.
The offense had the ball in the red zone three times Friday night, but a trio of interceptions — one a 95-yard pick six — kept the goose egg on the board for Alcovy in a game where Edgar said his defense played well enough to win.
“When you’re playing a big, physical team like Grovetown, those things are a problem,” he said. “Their first touchdown, we had (running back JQ Brown) for a loss, but he broke out from about four guys’ tackles and ended up scoring a touchdown.. We did a better job tackling after that, and rose to the occasion to put us in position to win, but offensively we didn’t get enough done.
“We shot ourselves in the foot on one too many occasions to count. We don’t have enough feet left to shoot.”
Despite the early touchdown, the Tigers held serve defensively, surrendering only one more offensive score — a 10-yard jaunt by Brown late in the game to provide the final margin. But quarterback Nick Simmons tossed a pair of interceptions, and an Alcovy receiver threw another on a trick play — plays that stopped any momentum the Tigers had.
“There were moments we had some success with (the wing-T), but again, we have to put our playmakers in position to be successful, and we didn’t do that,” Edgar said. “And again, I take full responsibility for that.”
Alcovy will have a quick turnaround as Newton County schools go on fall break this week, and the Tigers will host Lakeside Thursday night for homecoming.
Lakeside is riding the momentum of a 28-20 come-from-behind win against against Evans Friday night, which means Edgar and company won’t have too much time to stew over the team’s most recent misfortune.
“We have a short week this week, so we don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves,” Edgar said. “I’m taking over the offense, and I’m giving our (junior varsity) kids off this Thursday since they don’t have a game and we play on Thursday. That way we can spend the week focusing on the changes that we need to make.”
Wright did not immediately respond to attempts to reach out to him for comment.
