Twiggs County promotes Harris to top football job

When Zackery Harris was let go as head coach at Hancock Central in December of 2015, he naturally wasn’t too happy.

He also wasn’t out of work long, soon hooking up at Twiggs County as an assistant.

The Cobras had gone 4-7 under first-year head coach Ashley Harden, so Harris brought some experience to the staff.

Now, he’s in charge of that staff, having been approved Wednesday by the Twiggs County Board of Education to take over for Harden.

Harden was named as Northeast’s new head coach less than two weeks ago, succeeding Bruce Mullen.

Harris is a Hancock Central graduate who went 24-57 in eight seasons at his alma mater. The Bulldogs started off rough under Harris, going 0-10, 1-9 and 2-8 his first three seasons, but doing no worse than 4-6 the rest of the way and making the playoffs in 2012.

Hancock Central went 3-7 last season under Marleau Blount, and hasn’t had a winning season since going 7-4-1 in 2006.

Twiggs County had hit similarly rough times, with one winless and a one-win season since 2011. But the Cobras were among the surprise teams in 2016, going 8-4 and beating Marion County 46-7 in the first round of the GHSA Class 1A public playoffs.

It was their best season going 11-2 in 2009, the final season under Dexter Copeland, who returned for 2014 and went 1-9 and then departed to take over at Macon County.

This story was originally published March 29, 2017 at 8:52 PM with the headline "Twiggs County promotes Harris to top football job."