Today’s interviewee is Georgia Military College coach Rob Manchester, whose team will play Hutchinson Community College of Kansas on Sunday in the NJCAA Division I football semifinals at GMC’s Davenport Field in Milledgeville. ESPN+ will live stream the game starting at 3:30 p.m. GMC has 146 players in the program, 135 from Georgia high schools. GMC won a national title in 2001 and was the national runner-up in 2002, 2005 and 2013. The NJCAA went to a four-team playoff in 2021. More than 100 GMC players have gone on to play at Power 4 Conference schools, and more than 50 have played in the NFL, five that are active, including Trent Brown and YaYa Diaby. Manchester has been on GMC’s staff for 21 seasons, the past four as head coach.
1. How does it feel to be in the playoffs, and what can we expect from Sunday’s game? “You’re going to have two of the top junior college programs in the country. If somebody comes to the game or watches it on ESPN, they’re going to realize how talented junior college is. There are a lot of true major college football players at every level. Hutchinson has been on a really good run lately. They have several P4 guys committed. They’ve got a running back committed to Missouri. We’ve played some of the top teams in the country. We lost to the No. 1 team, Iowa Western. It went overtime and we went for two and lost 42-41. We beat Snow College [ranked No. 5] out of Utah. We beat Lackawanna [ranked No. 11]. We bring a really physical brand of football. We have one of the top rushing attacks in the country. This game is a great opportunity for us to showcase our community and our campus. There are a lot of people that don’t realize we’re here. It’s a neat deal.”
2. Your roster is almost entirely former Georgia high school players. Has that always been the case? “When we started the football program in 1991, everybody still had to do military cadet corps, and that was all the way up to COVID. We only carried a roster of about 75 guys, and only a little over half or three-quarters from Georgia. Since COVID, we’ve tried to do a better job of recruiting in state. We don’t really go outside our borders now. We don’t think we need to. About 92% of our team is from Georgia. We’ve been in almost every high school in the state, covering a lot of ground. That’s our main mission, to recruit Georgia high schools in all classifications, private, GIAA, everything.” [With the football program no longer under the military cadet corps, the roster has increased substantially each season since 2021, and GMC has a redshirt program.]
3. Has the transfer portal had a big impact on the kinds of players you’re getting? “The transfer portal made a big impact. That created a bigger pool for us to pick from. Four years ago, all we had access to was non-qualifiers because everybody who was a really good player had a home. Now with the portal, they [four-year colleges] are looking for older guys. That’s leaving more high school kids out. That’s really benefited us on the front end for sure. Junior college has changed to where most of our kids are academic qualifiers with the NCAA.”
4. Who are some of your best players, and what made them good fits for GMC? “Keenan Phillips of Bainbridge committed to James Madison, but with their coaching turnover, they didn’t have a spot for him. He was left out in the cold. We were able to provide an opportunity, and he’s getting offers – Old Dominion, Eastern Michigan. South Carolina had him over for a game. He’s the real deal. Our quarterback, Chip Cooper, is a full qualifier, a high-academic kid. Teams overlooked him because of his height [6 feet]. He’s been our starter for two years and won a bunch of ball games. Jarris Coney, a linebacker from Northside-Warner Robins, is one of the top tacklers in the country. He has a chip on his shoulder because he’s 5-9, but he’s a heck of a player. He had 18 tackles against Snow College. We have a defensive lineman, Aiden Benton, from Lovejoy. He’s one of our leaders in sacks. He went to West Georgia and redshirted and he didn’t have any film. We’ve got guys starting who went elsewhere, didn’t play, got in the portal, but didn’t have any college film and didn’t have a home. Emmanuel Gyamfi, a freshman from Mountain View, has had a really good year. Jonathan Ashley from Laney, Max Thurston from Monroe Area. Gabe Pearce from Fitzgerald. We have a lot of others.” [Many of those players are familiar to GHSF Daily from their high school days. Phillips was a two-time 1,000-yard rusher. Cooper passed for 5,560 yards and 54 touchdowns in his career. Benton, Thurston and Pearce were first-team all-state players.]
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