Jeff Herron, Camden County head coach
Today’s interviewee is Camden County coach Jeff Herron, whose team defeated previously unbeaten Valdosta 17-14 on Friday. Herron was Camden’s coach from 2000 to 2012, winning 12 region titles and three state championships. He returned to Camden in 2021 after coaching stops at Prince Avenue Christian, Grayson, T.L. Hanna in South Carolina and Tennessee Tech. Camden was 4-7 last season and started this one 0-2 but is now 6-3 overall, 2-1 in Region 1-7A, with a chance to finish second and get a home playoff game with a victory over Lowndes on Nov. 4.
1. What did your team do well that made the difference in beating Valdosta? “We didn't turn the ball over and didn't have the penalties we had the week before [against Colquitt County]. Our opening drive was huge. We hadn't seen anyone block their defensive line well all year, but we had an 85-yard drive that took almost seven minutes off the clock. I'm still not sure we blocked them well, but we were able to get in their way a little bit. Our offensive staff had a great plan, and our kids executed well.”
2. What are you and your team feeling emotionally after that win? Was it something your team’s soul needed? “Yes, I definitely think our team's soul, as you say, needed it. We had lost all of our region games last year after holding leads late in the game, and to win against a great Valdosta team like we did made it even more special. We blocked a field goal that would have tied it with almost seven minutes left, and our offense went out and didn't give them another chance with the ball.”
3. Has getting Camden County football back to where you want it been harder than you anticipated? “Yes, I was foolish enough to think, I guess, that I could just show up and we would get better. I guess the good Lord felt like my humility needed some adjustment. As I mentioned earlier, last year was really a struggle. It just seemed that every time we got to the fourth quarter, everyone in the stadium was just waiting to see what would go wrong, and then it would. But, as a head coach you just have to keep plugging away, you keep working hard every day and every week. The kids expect and deserve your best. I remind myself of a Bobby Bowden quote about rebuilding a program, ‘You lose big, then you lose small, then you win small, and then you can win big.’ We all want it to happen overnight, but that's not realistic.”
4. Where do you feel the program is now? What’s been achieved, and what’s needed to get to the next step, of Camden being a top-10 team again? “That's a hard question to answer. I felt really good about our team and the offseason we had, but then we stumbled out of the gate losing our first two. But our players and coaches responded great after that second loss. You could just feel a change. Six weeks later, though, we went to Colquitt and played and coached like we had never seen a high school game. But after seeing how Colquitt has played everyone else, I told our team we aren't as bad as we thought we were after the Colquitt loss and we aren't as good as we think we are after the Valdosta win. We are still a young team, and we must learn each week, good and bad, and keep working to improve. Our middle schools and ninth-grade and JV teams had great seasons, and I see that as a very good sign, but right now we will just focus on trying to go out and not take a step back against a very good Lowndes team that beat us last year.”