Warner Robins is playing for a state championship Saturday. Here’s how they got there
What is a “rebuilding year” for a football team? Does it mean a completely lost season with only a handful of wins? Or just a .500 record?
For the Warner Robins Demons, a “rebuilding year” consisted of a nine-game winning streak and a shot at a state championship. They play Ware County for the GHSA 5A State Championship in Atlanta Saturday.
The Demons have all the momentum in the world in the search for their third straight championship, but Saturday’s game could never tell the story of their year. The season outlook was not always so rosy.
‘One of the toughest things I’ve been involved in’
Turnover was, as it can be with high school teams, one of the reasons for Warner Robins struggling out of the gate. But even with that explanation, the team did not look right from the outset.
“We lost a lot of talent on the offensive line, we had to change our offense, focus on the perimeter,” head coach Marquis Westbrook told the Telegraph. “But we’ve had a really great season. Our guys have fought hard.”
The Demons began the season 1-4, though that one win did come against their longtime rival Northside. They had a new quarterback from another school and a new offensive coordinator after their former coach left for another school.
This is a team coming off five consecutive state title game appearances and back-to-back championships — two years in which they’d only had two losses across 29 games. And that’s excluding the two years before that, where they appeared in the title game despite not winning it.
Needless to say, the slow start was not just unfamiliar but unwelcome for both the team and its fans.
“Obviously the 1-4 start was one of the toughest things I’ve been involved in. I’ve been with other teams where you sputter, but when you have such high expectations in a program like this, it kind of magnifies it for people,” Westbrook said. “But we knew we had a good football team, and we just kept trying to win games.”
Westbrook said there were complaints and “finger-pointing” internally, too, but it ultimately came down to keeping the same effort and not paying attention to their record.
The final two losses of that 1-4 opening stretch, one a 14-7 loss to region foe Dutchtown and the other 28-8 neighboring rival and 6A school Houston County, looked like the final straw.
Then the Demons woke up.
The streak
It started with a dominant 38-0 victory on the road against Ola, a region win that gave them a spark. Then there were blowouts against Eagle’s Landing and Union Grove.
“When we got into the thick of our region schedule, we really started rolling,” Westbrook said. “That’s when we knew this was the team we had been looking for at the beginning of the year.”
Before they knew it, the Demons had won their last five regular season games and secured a playoff spot. Quarterback Chase Reese, a transfer from Hawkinsville more accustomed to a different game plan, had fully evolved into the leader of a powerhouse offense.
“Chase was a kid coming in from a different system, and once he started to see it and use his legs, his athleticism, we really started to take shape,” Westbrook said. “You saw flashes of it in that classic Northside game, we just had to put it together.”
Reese’s skills were particularly on display in a Middle Georgia matchup against Jones County. The Demons scored 54 points thanks to Reese’s five touchdowns and nearly 300 yards.
The Demons’ defensive group was no slouch either, led by star and Clemson commit Vic Burley. Burley has been a big part of the team’s playoff run, scoring touchdowns on offense and defense alike.
But then, just as quickly as it had all turned around, the season took a hit. At the start of the playoffs, Reese was injured.
“I mean the beginning of the playoffs, first quarter, he tears his knee up, and it’s like, ‘Oh boy, here we go,’” Westbrook said. “Then Isiah stepped in.”
With their quarterback injured, backup Isiah Canion stepped into the passing role. Canion had spent much of the season as a wide receiver but led the Demons past Jenkins in that opening round, then helped them to a gutsy overtime win on the road at Creekside.
A win over Cartersville at home gave them a ninth straight win and punched their ticket to the championship.
“Isiah came in and we didn’t miss a beat, he’s a really high IQ guy, both on the field and in the classroom,” Westbrook said. “The Creekside game, going into that type of environment, playing a really tough team and winning that way, we’re just riding that wave right now.”
With all the high and low waves they’ve had this season, it feels good for Warner Robins to ride one like that into a title game against the undefeated Ware County Gators.
The two teams have a history, as last year’s game against the Gators was the Demons’ only defeat the entire season on the way to their state title.
They are, the Warner Robins head coach said, a tough team. Toughness doesn’t bother Westbrook and his guys, though.
“That’s our identity, toughness,” he said. “That’s who we’ve been all year. We found that identity. That’s how we’re preparing, and we’ll be ready to be tough out there.”
Warner Robins will face Ware County in the GHSA 5A championship game Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Center Parc Stadium in Atlanta.
Warner Robins state title game streak
- 2017: Rome 38, Warner Robins 0
- 2018: Bainbridge 47, Warner Robins 41
- 2019: Buford 17, Warner Robins 14
- 2020: Warner Robins 62, Cartersville 28
- 2021: Warner Robins 38, Calhoun 14
- 2022: Warner Robins vs. Ware County
This story was originally published December 8, 2022 at 11:08 AM.