While at IMG, Lovasea Carroll may still be Warren County's best-ever player

Cherard Freeman knew Lovasea Carroll was going to be great well before the star running back ever played a snap of high school football.

But the first true sign of Carroll becoming a big-time difference-maker came during the youngster's eighth-grade middle school championship. Freeman, then the head coach at Warren County, was watching the local middle school title game when Carroll made the kind of play only a superstar can. Running to one side of the field, Carroll was tracked down by the defense and seemingly had nowhere to go. Calling on speed superior to his pursuers, however, Carroll cut back to the other direction, reversed the field, and out-ran all 11 defenders en route to a touchdown. In that instant, Freeman knew he was about to get a big-time player the following season.

“That’s when I said, ‘This kid is going to be special,’” Freeman said.

That day was just the first of many “wow moments” for Carroll. But in reality, Freeman knew about Carroll early into his tenure at Warren County. As Freeman rebuilt the downtrodden Screaming Devils, he knew a player like Carroll could provide a key role in assisting the process.

When Freeman took the job at Warren County in 2013, the school was coming off a 1-9 season. In fact, from 1972-2012, the Screaming Devils had posted 21 losing seasons.

Freeman played high school football at Lincoln County and won two state titles in 1993 and 1995. During his four years at Lincoln County, his teams defeated Warren County each year by a combined score of 120-26. The archival website Pro Football Reference lists Warren County with zero players ever making it to the NFL.

“Honestly, we knew it was going to be a win when we played them,” Freeman said.

Freeman, who took the Bryan County head coaching job this offseason, said Warren County’s turning point came with Carroll on the roster. In Freeman’s first four seasons, the Screaming Devils went 9-31. With Carroll on the roster as a freshman, the team finished 1-9.

But it was Carroll’s sophomore season that saw Warren County make the needed gains.

The biggest game, naturally, came against Lincoln County. Carroll posted 140 rushing yards, 52 receiving yards, and scored two total touchdowns in a victory. In fact, Warren County upended Lincoln County 28-21, ending a staggering 43-game losing streak.

Caitlin Boland, who was covering high school sports for the McDuffie Progress at the time, attended that game and was blown away with Carroll’s performance.

“He just ran over them, basically,” Boland said. “He was so much faster than their defense. He dominated, basically.”

During his sophomore season at Warren County, Carroll ran for 1,446 yards and 19 touchdowns. Warren County finished 5-5 and missed the postseason. A year later, the Screaming Devils went 6-4 in the regular season and earned a trip to the Class A Public playoffs, where they advanced to the state quarterfinals.

However, Carroll was not with the program for Warren County's historic run. After his freshman and sophomore seasons, Carroll left Warren County to attend Bradenton, Florida’s IMG Academy.

“I really think if I'd had him last year, we'd have won the state championship,” Freeman said. “We made it all the way to the third round of the playoffs, and that’s something that hadn’t been done in Warrenton in a long time. Without him, we still had a decent football team. But he would have taken us over the hump. He was a game-changer. He had that game-changing speed.”

Upon its inception, Warren County football started strong before tapering off in the early 1970s. The school first played football in 1958 and became a quality program as early as 1961, when Ray Lamb took over as head coach. Lamb spent six years with the Screaming Devils and compiled a 53-11 record, which included three region championships from 1964-66 and Class C state titles in 1965 and 1966. After Lamb left, Hale Burnette took over in 1967 and delivered two more region titles and the 1968 Class C state championship.

In 1970, however, Briarwood Academy, a private school, opened in Warrenton. It’s not a coincidence that Briarwood Academy's arrival coincided with Warren County's success diminishing.

After 12 winning seasons, five region titles and three state championships in Warren County’s first 13 years of football existence, the program became mired in mediocrity for over four decades. From 1972 to 2012, Warren County combined for a record of 204-222. During that span, the Screaming Devils won only three region championships and posted just three 10-win seasons.

Under Lamb and Burnette, Warren County sent a handful of players to college teams such as Georgia Tech, Furman, and The Citadel. But prior to the online era of recruiting, it’s not known just how many players from Warren County went on to play college football. Since 2008, only two players from Warren County received as many as two stars from Rivals: athlete Tommy Seals (Class of 2008) and linebacker Jonathan Lewis (Class of 2009).

The one player who did commit and play college football program was defensive tackle Torrez Wentz (Class of 2014), who didn’t receive a star rating from Rivals. Wentz played with the Monarchs from 2014-17.

Carroll played two years at Warren County and will not finish his high school career there. But if receiving four stars as the nation's sixth-best athlete, culminating with his commitment to Georgia, is an indicator, Carroll might go down as the greatest player to ever suit up in a Warren County uniform.

When Carroll left for IMG, Boland recalled a simultaneous feeling in the community of excitement and sadness. While Carroll wanted to better himself as a football player, a lot of people wished he could have kept winning games for the small-town school.

“They knew they were going to have big shoes to fill with him,” Boland said. “At the same time, they were happy. Warren County is a small town. You know how small towns are—they’re very prideful of people who do well that come out of their towns. I think a lot of people saw he was going to better himself and have a chance to maybe eventually go pro. I think it was a little bit of both.”