STOVALL SPEAKS: Why Thomson coach Michael Youngblood didn’t mind losing on the field to win off the field

THOMSON, Ga. (WJBF) – If you were one of those individuals who wrote the Thomson Bulldogs out of the Class AA state championship race, you may want to go find a pen and write them back in.

With Friday night’s 24-14 win over Burke County – Thomson’s first win against the Bears since 2021 – the Bulldogs all but cinched their fourth region title in the last five years.

We can say that because Thomson’s last three regular season opponents – Glenn Hills, Josey and Butler – are a combined 3-18. And while you can’t technically say it’s a certainty that Thomson will win those games, well, let’s just say if any of the aforementioned schools knocked off Thomson, it would be the CSRA upset of the century.

But, I digress.

Thomson coach Michael Youngblood seems to always know how to get the best out of his Bulldogs during region play, no matter what happens on the non-region slate.

And, what exactly did happen to the Dogs during non-region play?

After a 7-0 win in a weather-shortened season opener against Evans, Thomson fell in three of its next four, including a three-score loss at North Augusta and narrow defeats at the hands of Grovetown and Swainsboro.

On paper, it looked about as un-Thomson-like as you could get. And, given the lofty expectations of an absolutely talent-loaded Bulldogs squad, those losses – plus a narrow win against Richmond Academy – caused many to wonder if Thomson was a tad overrated this year.

Maybe that talent wasn’t as talented as originally thought.

Wrong.

Jaris Sinkfield is one of the most slippery slot receivers in the state, regularly drawing comparisons to former Thomson star Jontavious Curry whose speed helped Thomson run toward the program’s sixth state title.

Quarterback Markavious Jones is such a complete athlete that he’s getting Division I basketball offers. Kennedi Bailey is a consensus 3-star prospect with more than two dozen Power 4 offers.

If I keep naming them, this column will get ridiculously long. The point is, no, nobody at Thomson got “less talented” between the offseason and now.

So, what happened to Thomson in the first part of the season?

In a word, discipline.

In a rare moment of on-the-record candor from a high school head football coach, Youngblood highlighted the intrasquad issues that kept some of his best players out of the lineup in some of those losses and tight contests.

“Well, we’ve put that behind us,” Youngblood said. “We didn’t have our full arsenal in a couple of games we lost this year. We had kids suspended. We didn’t let others play in a quarter because we just didn’t know how to act in the school building or we were missing practice, so we had a lot of character issues that we had to put an end to.”

Kudos to Youngblood, not just for taking measures to put non-football things before football for his young student-athletes, but also for him actually being willing to go on record to talk about it.

“We had to get our guys to understand that there’s a certain way we do things and a standard to how we do it, and you’ve gotta meet those standards, or we’ll move on without you.”

Without naming names, let’s just say these weren’t bench warmers who Youngblood benched. It was a strong message that he hopes let both his athletes and the Thomson High administration know that, even in a football-crazy community, there are some things more important than football.

“At the end of the day, nobody wants to lose a game,” Youngblood said. “But we’re not gonna let the kids run our program. That’s just the bottom line.”

The suspensions and player discipline came in games preceding the bye week which gave Thomson some extra time to get it together. When the Bulldogs administered a 35-0 beatdown to a then-one-loss Laney squad to open up Region 4-AA play last week, it reminded the Bulldog faithful – not to mention the rest of the CSRA – that this was the Thomson squad that everybody was expecting from Week 1.

Youngblood wasn’t afraid of disappointing the fans in order to preserve accountability with his players.

“Through it all, I think they got an opportunity to understand that when it’s all said and done, that ball is gonna kick off on Friday night with or without you,” Youngblood said. “I think Friday against Laney, you saw what we could be. And, I think that’s the thing everybody in this community wanted early on. But sometimes, it’s like that kid you tell not to touch the hot stove. They’ve gotta go touch it and try it.

“So, hopefully we’ve gotten burnt enough. Hopefully we’ve learned our lesson, and hopefully we can play the way that we’re capable of playing on Fridays.”

They did against their old nemesis Burke County, snapping a four-game skid against the Bears on Youngblood’s birthday, almost bringing the coach to tears and serving notice once again to both the CSRA and greater Georgia, that the only team that can beat Thomson is Thomson.

“We lost some games because of some things we were dealing with internally with our character,” Youngblood said. “And I had to do some things and we had to take a couple of L’s. And, it’s well worth it.”

That’s when he paused. His voice broke. All he could muster after that moment of reflection was the same two-word refrain Thomson will likely be singing all weekend long.

“Go Dogs.”

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