The Portal Middle High Panthers are ready to shake up this upcoming football season after coming off a history making season last year. Overall they finished 8-4, and 4-0 in region play which put them in first place.
Last season, the Panthers won their first region championship, got to host a second round playoff game, sold out PAC Stadium for the first time in school history and were the Erk Russell Classic Champions.
The Panthers 2024 graduating class had a huge impact on Portal Middle High, and the returning Panthers have that spark they need to keep the fire burning well into this season.
At the Downtown First Friday Pep Rally, the Panthers kicked off celebrations that evening. Head Coach Jason McEachin is going into fourth season as head coach for the Panthers and is super excited to see how his team unfolds this season.
“I feel really good about the potential of this team,” McEachin said. “The big key for this unit is how we respond to adversity.”
Being such a young team, along with gaining new transfers and players puts the Panthers in a tight spot when it comes to chemistry because a lot of the players on the team haven’t been playing with each other long.
Junior Cornerback, Kobe Burroughs, feels like his team will repeat the history-making season they had in 2023.
A lot of that success had to do with 2024 seniors Amir Jackson and Elijah Coleman were at the forefront of the Panthers historic season last year. Jackson was a two-time all-state football player, 2023 region athlete of the year, first-team all-region as a junior. As a receiver, he had 86 catches for 1,437 yards and 17 touchdowns. He also had 46 carries for 388 yards and five touchdowns. For his senior year, he threw a touchdown and had 250+ returning yards which put him at just over 3,000 all-purpose yards.
Coleman played multiple positions for the Panthers, and his stats showed just how dominant he was. As Quarterback, Coleman had 2,767 passing yards, and 26 passing touchdowns. As a Running Back, he had 2,383 rushing yards, and 34 rushing touchdowns.
“We’re excited to play and show teams what we got since we lost Amir and Elijah,” Burroughs said.
From a fan and parent perspective, Kaisha Burroughs is excited for the season too, especially after the historic season the Panthers had last year.
“I’m one of those sports moms that supports every athlete,” Mrs. Burroughs said. “We still have some wonderful athletes that are coming up and they’ve been working hard all summer.
The Panthers have some great talent and have been cultivating that through camps and 7on7 tournaments.
Team captain and senior, Chase Smith, talked about how his team didn't want to be satisfied with what they did last season.
"We're in full on attack mode," Smith stated. "We don't want to sit back and claim what is ours from last year. We want to attack and we want it again. We're not going to sit back and let everybody have us marked on their schedule. We're marking people on ours."
With Hurricane Debby cancelling all scrimmage games, this Bulloch County rivalry showdown will be the ultimate test to see if what the Panthers have been working on will pay off.
The Panthers will be in action on Saturday, August 17, at Paulson Stadium as they take on the Bulloch Academy Gators in the Erk Russell Classic with kick off being at 9 pm.