North Oconee senior wide receiver Landon Roldan remembers the sourness of last year’s quarterfinal playoff exit. A 48-26 drubbing at the hands of Benedictine sent the Titans packing prematurely, for a third straight year.
“It was a feeling I don’t want to feel ever again,” he said.
Roldan walked off the field in Savannah thinking he and his teammates had left chips on the table.
“I think we went out a little scared,” Roldan said, “and if we would have gone out and played the way we normally play, I think we would’ve had a shot, but we didn’t.”
Coach Tyler Aurandt said he saw a “completely different team” that night, compared to the squad that had gone undefeated to that point.
This year, Aurandt is hoping for a completely different memory – his team celebrating a championship in Atlanta.
With Roldan, a four-star prospect committed to Georgia, as the centerpiece and junior quarterback Harrison Faulkner pulling the strings, the No. 3 Titans once again seem poised for a deep playoff run.
North Oconee begins its title pursuit Friday, hosting Eagle’s Landing. Just like last year, the Titans are undefeated and a top seed, eager to finally win a state championship for a school whose success across sports has filled its trophy cabinets.
In 2023, North Oconee bullied its opponents on the way to a three-peat region title. But similar to previous years, the Titans lost their balance a few stepping stones short of the ultimate prize.
On a night marred by poor tackling and injuries, there weren’t many positives. The play of Faulkner, who had to step in when senior quarterback Max Wilson got injured, was a small consolation prize for Aurandt and his staff.
“That’s when you really could start to see the competitiveness, his ability to make plays, his ability to make throws,” Aurandt said of Faulkner, the son of Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner. “He did it against a very high quality football team on a big stage.”
Faulkner threw for over 200 yards and found Roldan for a 26-yard touchdown completion. A year later, both say, that’s when “it clicked.”
“That’s when I knew this year would be good,” Faulkner said.
In 2024, “Faulkner to Roldan” is North Oconee’s premier attraction.
Now a junior, Faulkner threw for more than 2,300 yards, 29 touchdowns and only three interceptions in the regular season. He rushed for another 510 yards and six touchdowns.
Roldan’s 4.3 speed turned cornerbacks upside down and inside out. He returned to North Oconee as the reigning Region 8-4A Athlete of the Year, racking up 1,101 receiving yards, the second most in Class 4A, according to Georgia High School Football Daily.
Together the duo led a Titans offense that averaged 43.4 points per game. For the fourth straight year, North Oconee went undefeated in Region 8-4A.
“We were doubted by a lot of people,” Faulkner said. “They said it was gonna be a rebuilding year, but we just used it as motivation.”
Faulkner and Roldan have flourished in their final season as teammates, but their chemistry dates back further than last year’s flashes against Benedictine. In 2022, the duo suited up for junior varsity together.
“We would just kind of go out there and just play backyard football,” Faulkner said. “I’d just pull him telling him where to go, and we’d make plays, and that’s kind of where it all started with us.”
Two years later, that same mentality is shaping North Oconee’s offense. Roldan’s crisp route running and NFL-speed gives him an advantage in the flat, across the middle and down the seams. Faulkner’s composure and seemingly innate ability to locate his top target is something every high school coach envies.
While Roldan is off to play for Kirby Smart next season, Faulkner is still mulling his college options. Several FBS-level schools including UAB, Troy and Coastal Carolina have offered the junior.
As big as their influence is on North Oconee’s identity, a third-straight 10-0 season isn’t just the doing of two players — in fact, far from it. The Titans’ offense also features a stout rotation of offensive linemen and is complemented by a suffocating interior front on defense.
For the third straight season North Oconee allowed fewer than 10 points per game.
“I think our coaches do a really good job of just instilling the value of you can’t rely on past success to dictate what we’re going to do this year,” Aurandt said. “Going into this season, we had a new region, we’re playing some new teams. We knew it was going to be difficult.”
Emblazoned on the walls of the North Oconne’s gymnasium is a ring of state championship banners from more sports than you can count. What is notably missing is a football banner.
“My motivation is seeing all these teams we’ve had in the past years,” Roldan said. “Knowing that we had the people to do it, we could have went out there and done it, but we just weren’t physically ready.
“So I feel like this year, we just got to go out and dominate.”
Jack Keys is a student in the University of Georgia’s undergraduate Sports Media Certificate program.
About the Author
