The Georgia Military Prep football team is under new leadership with 24-year-old Gavin Tierce now head coach for the Bulldogs.
Tierce arrived at GMC Prep in 2023 as the offensive line coach for former head coach Bobby Rhoades and also served as head coach of the wrestling program.
After the team won only three games last year, Tierce has put in a lot of work this off-season toward building a new culture at GMC Prep.
“Early on, the focus was on selling our new program to our returning players. I wanted to get them excited for the changes that were coming to the program,” Tierce said in a recent interview with The Baldwin Bulletin.
“Once they bought in, the second goal was to have them sell it to their peers in the hallways in hopes of getting more numbers out for football.
It worked extremely well, as seen in the fact we now have 40-plus players on the team.”
Tierce also has placed major emphasis on team chemistry and team building in hopes of revamping the energy at GMC Prep.
“Phase 2 revolved heavily around GMC Pride and team bonding,” he said. “Instilling the mentality, as mentioned previously, positively impacted the teambonding aspect because our players bought into the fact that they are all in this together.
“They have also been pushed harder in the weight room this offseason than they’ve ever been before, which has also been a huge factor in the overall culture change that has been taking place since the spring.”
The Bulldogs noticeably improved toward the end of last season, winning two of their last three games, but came up short of making the playoffs with Glascock County being awarded the final Single-A D2 playoff spot.
Throughout the offseason, Tierce has focused on making sure the Bulldogs’ confidence continues to grow.
“They have exceeded all of my initial expectations. The strength gains we have made in the weight room have been unbelievable. They have also adapted to our new offensive and defensive systems extremely well, and we are much further in our system install process than I initially thought we would be at this point,” the new coach said.
“I can’t say enough about the complete turnaround some of our players have made, both physically and mentally.”
The Bulldogs will begin preparing for the 2024 season next week with preseason practices before traveling to Montgomery County Aug. 2, and will wrap up preseason practices with a scrimmage versus Stratford Academy Aug. 9 at GMC’s Davenport Field. The Bulldogs regular season will begin Aug.
16 at Atkinson County, followed by another away game Aug. 23 at Crawford County. The team’s home opener will be Aug. 30, at 7:30 p.m. against Brentwood.