Northside and Perry football work out the kinks in preseason battle at the MAC

WARNER ROBINS — It might not have officially counted, but football is back in the MAC after a preseason scrimmage between the Northside Eagles and Perry Panthers on Friday.

Both teams had kinks to work out before the regular season, but there were also some positives to take away as the programs go their separate ways.

Here’s a few observations:

The offensive lines

Northside and Perry come into this season in completely different places as programs — The Eagles are hopeful in their first season under head coach Daniel Williams, while the Panthers are fresh off of a region championship in 2024 and state championship in 2023.

While that showed in some areas, one place they’re similar is their offensive lines.

Each lost important members and replace them with inexperience; Northside lost Region 2-5A Offensive Lineman of the Year Chastan Brown to Florida State University and Perry lost All-Region players Jukorin Thomas and Stephen Gore.

Panthers coach Kevin Smith has said he’s got seven players in competition: Johnny Clarke, Caden Kinchen, Quintez Alexander, Connor Jenkins, Harrison Cooper, Kane Kimbrough and Joshua Latson.

All of that inexperienced showed as missed assignments led to frequent pressure throughout the night, particularly in pass protection. Run blocking wasn’t perfect either, though, as the running backs on both sides got swallowed up plenty.

To be fair to Perry, Northside defensive lineman Elijah Patmon looked as advertised. He was double teamed often and even faced a triple team in the third quarter but still made the play-stopping tackle.

It may have just been a scrimmage, but both offensive lines have improvements to make as they continue their 2025 season.

The Northside quarterback situation

Northside’s quarterbacks were shaky at best to start the game.

Freshman JD Garman took the first few drives and missed on some throws, especially as he faced pressure. Junior Wyatt Henson came in, missed a throw on a miscommunication with a receiver and then threw a pick six before Garman came back in and threw an interception of his own.

The offense was also plagued by penalties (though, both teams really suffered from those) which didn’t give them any easy situations to get out of. But regardless, Williams is far from concerned.

“We gotta go get reps. You gotta think, one was in the eighth grade last year, one was strictly a JV guy. I mean, this is varsity football,” Williams said. “Perry is a 2023 state championship team, so we just gotta get reps. I’m not worried at all on where we are offensively. Offense usually comes behind the defense, defense usually goes pretty fast. We’ll be fine.”

After a rough drive Williams pulled Garman, who seemed to be visibly distressed, and talked to him for a couple of minutes on the way back to the sideline.

Defensive effort and an emerging running back

Defensive effort and flying around the field is important to Williams, who liked what he saw for about quarter.

The Eagles’ defense attacked with vigor on every play to start the game and took pride in tearing through blocks and making tackles. But that effort waned as the game went on.

“We gotta learn how to play four quarters. The first quarter they came out flying and guns blazing because they were excited, ready to get out here,” Williams said. “We just got to stay consistent with attacking the ball and go and make plays. I think we had enough opportunities to put our offense in better situations a little bit more than we did.”

“The pass game we got to correct some things back there, we had some guys kind of open all over the place. But we’ll fix that secondary on the back end. Like I said, the defense is going to be the strength of our team right now.”

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Perry running back Kam Oliver burst onto the scene with power on Friday as he looked like the running back of the future for the Panthers.

While Decorrion Daniels will take the majority of the snaps this season, the sophomore displayed some serious bruising power in his runs.

He was tough to take down, trucked some defenders and looked like a battering ram in the end zone.

With the Perry wide receiver core depleted from last year and Daniels being such a good threat out wide, Oliver could see some immediate meaningful snaps.

Northside will open their regular season against Eagle’s Landing on Saturday, Aug. 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the MAC. Perry will host Baldwin on Friday, Aug. 15 at 7:30 p.m.