Coming into Week Three for the 2025 GHSA Football season, the Bulloch County teams are having a couple great starts.
The Bulloch Academy Gators are off to a hot 2-0 start, and the Statesboro Blue Devils are 1-1. The Blue Devils and the Gators get rest weeks, while the Portal Panthers and the Southeast Bulloch Yellow Jackets are both looking for their first wins of the season Friday night at 7:30 pm.
SOUTHEAST BULLOCH YELLOW JACKETS
The Southeast Bulloch Yellow Jackets are preparing to start region play as they travel to Savannah to take on the Islands Sharks. Coming off a bye week, the Jackets are looking to secure their first win of the 2025 season after a tough 21-10 loss to cross town rivals, the Statesboro High Blue Devils in the season opener.
The Sharks are also coming into this matchup looking for their first win of the 2025 season. Similar to the Yellow Jackets, the Sharks are coming off a bye week after a 43-21 loss to McIntosh County Academy, who is in Portal’s region.
In their last matchup during the 2024 season, the Yellow Jackets dominated the Sharks with a decisive 43–7 victory. They excelled in all aspects of the game, holding a commanding 30–0 lead by halftime. Key touchdowns were scored by Colby Smith, Quentin Reed, and Chase Douglas, who also had an interception return for a touchdown. The team's strong performance included forced turnovers, a solid ground game, and no punts.
Head coach Jared Zito spoke of his disappointment with how the season opener turned out for his Yellow Jacket team. He talked about how over the course of the past week, his team has spent a lot of time reviewing film and correcting their practice tape so they can be more fundamentally sound.
“I was disappointed in how poorly we executed,” Zito said. “On both sides of the ball, just us not doing the things we had done in practice.”
After almost two weeks of time to work on becoming fundamentally sound, Zito and his Jackets are hoping to "just play well" with the hopes that everything else will take care of itself and his team will build the confidence they need to go into region play the rest of the season.
PORTAL PANTHERS
The Portal Panthers are also looking to secure their first win of the 2025 season after coming off a bye week and a 49-20 loss to the Bulloch Academy Gators during the 14th Annual Erk Russell Classic (ERC). The Cobras are also looking for their first win of the 2025 season after falling 41-18 to the Treutlen Vikings.
In the last matchup between the Panthers and the Cobras, the Panthers defeated the Cobras 34-20 on the road. Despite falling behind 12-0 early in the game, the Panthers rallied to score 34 unanswered points.
A key moment came in the third quarter when they outscored the Cobras 20-0, with touchdowns from Jason Crawford, Jaylon Strickland, and Harold Washington. Brian McQueen sealed the victory in the fourth quarter with a 62-yard pick-six, his second defensive touchdown of the season.
Head coach Jason McEachin talked about how his team focused on fixing the mistakes in all three phases of the game. After that devastating loss in the ERC, he realized that they needed to work on the fundamentals.
“We evaluated film, found things that we did not do well, and have gone to work trying to fix them,” McEachin mentioned.
Twiggs is known for their big explosive plays, so the Panthers have put an emphasis on fundamental defense in order to combat that. They’ve been focusing on angles, leverage, and where their eyes should be for blocking purposes.
The Panthers are still trying to gel under new sophomore quarterback, Gideon Fulcher, who was a summer transfer. Coach McEachin talked about how coachable Fulcher is and how he is making “incremental improvements every day.”
Up Next
All four teams will be back in action for Week Four. The Statesboro Blue Devils will host the Greenbrier Wolves for their first region matchup of the season. The Southeast Bulloch Yellow Jackets will host the Calvary Day Cavaliers. The Portal Panthers will travel to Millen, GA to take on the Jenkins War Eagles.
All these matchups will be on Friday, September 5, 2025 kicking off at 7:30 pm. The Bulloch Academy Gators will be traveling to Lyons, GA to take on the Robert Toombs Christian Academy Crusaders on Thursday, September 4, 2025 with that game kicking off at 7:30 pm.
Live Score Updates
Once again this football season, Grice Connect Sports will offer live scoring powered by ScoreStream. To get live score during the game or anytime you want local sports scores, go to the Sports link on the Grice Connect website.
Parents and Super Fans
We always love to hear from parents (or other super fans!) who would like to send us photos and live game updates from home and away games for each school this season.
If you're interested, please contact sports@griceconnect.com or Blake Williams at Blake@griceconnect.com for more information.
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