Starting Lineup: Bainbridge’s Jay Walls excited to keep this team at the top

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) - The Bainbridge Bearcat football team is no stranger to success, and new head coach Jay Walls is no stranger to Georgia football. He knows what's expected, and he's excited to keep this team at the top.

"The Bainbridge job came open and I felt like a great opportunity and everything fell into place and we are super excited," he said.

A Georgia boy himself, Walls went to Valdosta State, and had coached high school football in Georgia before spending the last 12 years at Navarre in the Florida Panhandle.

"It's awesome to be in south Georgia for personal reasons, but really was big of course is the football in south Georgia, and the football at Bainbridge High School."

A football program that doesn't need a lot of work.

"The culture here at Bainbridge has been set," he said. "There's been a lot of success here in the past. Coach Littleton and the staff and the guys did a great job. We have a lot of those guys here. The love football in Bainbridge and south Georgia. There's a lot of support. Very exciting. It's an honor for me to be a part of that."

Success and culture he looks to carry on.

"I'm a big believer in a year round program. We are going to work hard in the weight room. We're going to hard on skill. We're going to work hard on speed and agility. We're just going to try and do the best we can in every phase of the game."

And the Bearcats motto? Striving to be uncommon.

"We're going to do the extra. We're going to do the little things," he said. "We're going to do the things that other people don't do or can't do."

The things that make Bainbridge great, and the things that brought him back home to Georgia in the first place.

"Just that fire, that intensity, that Friday night excitement. Just about every game is a playoff atmosphere."

That's an atmosphere that's hard to turn down. Coach telling us his defense is going to look the same as in year's past at Bainbridge. Offensively, coach likes a balanced offense. He said they'll run and they'll throw and have fun with their offense.