FYN Exclusive: Preseason Interview with Coach Clark Drennan

Head Coach Clark Drennan has been the leader of the Fannin County High School football team for eight years, going a perfect 8-0 against heated rival Gilmer High School. The Rebels begin the season with a home game against Murphy on Friday August 19th. Coach Drennan is hoping to avenge last year’s 55-21 thrashing. He took some time to sit for an exclusive preseason interview with FYN.

The Rebels run a ball control wishbone attack, designed to wear the defense down and shorten the game. The Rebels lost top rusher Kreis Garrison to graduation; however, a slew of running backs are returning, including the second and third leading rushers, Blake Henry, and Peyton Satterfield respectively, who combined for over a thousand yards on the ground. The two leading receivers, Ryan Nix, and Landon Clement graduated as well, but Drennan expects to get production out of a young core.

“We got a couple guys that we feel like can help us in that area, that didn’t play last year, Chris Newton and Noah O’Neil, will be back this year. Noah’s hurt right now, he’s got a collar bone injury he’s working through, but we hope to have him back by next week. Newton kid got a concussion last year, so he was out the whole year as a freshman. He’ll be a sophomore this year, both those kids will be sophomores. So we’re going to ask those kids to fill in those roles of the guys that we lost.”

The defense, after losing nine members, will be trying out different fronts, in order to take advantage of Fannin’s athleticism.

“We’re going to an eight man front this year, and we feel like our kids have got some athleticism and some quickness so we going to try to utilize that this year.”

Drennan expounded on the fierce rival that the Rebels have with their neighbor to the south, Gilmer High School.

“Gilmer, we played them every year for 35 years, ever since we started being a school, without missing a year. They’ve owned this series 20 to 13, but they’ve lost the last eight,”

Drennan said.

It just so happens that Drennen has been the head coach at Fannin for eight years, the Dahlonega native has been in coaching for 15. On losing to Gilmer Drennan had this to say,

“By God as long as I don’t I’ll keep my job!”

Drennan also discussed the Rebels’ strategy for dealing with the sweltering summer heat that has received attention lately due to the recent rise in deaths of high school football players.

“We make sure we water them down every 15 minutes.”

Drennan has preached a consistent message when comes to the yearly expectations for the Rebels football program.

“Our expectations are always the same. Number one, beat Gilmer, win all of our games at home, win our side of the sub-region, play for the region championship, and our last one, the only one we haven’t achieved, is practice on Thanksgiving.”

Practicing on Thanksgiving signifies being in the state playoffs, a fact that Drennan wistfully remembered having to explain to a wary mother.