Murray County's season-opening 35-21 win over Southeast Whitfield didn't make any waves across the state.
In Chatsworth, however, last week's victory resonated much deeper.
Losing has become the norm for the Indians, so much so that few players at any level of competition in the school system can recall a year that didn't end with more losses than wins. Over the past 13 seasons, the program has gone 24-107, a stretch that includes three 0-10 campaigns, three with one win and five with two wins. (One of those two-win seasons was the result of the Indians being credited with victories after the season because of forfeits.)
Those numbers wouldn't be so difficult for Chatsworth folks if they hadn't been preceded by a decade in which the Bill Napier-led Indians won 75 games, posted four playoff wins and never had a season with fewer than five victories.
But those years - and the 23 winning seasons prior to that - are what intrigued current Indians coach Chad Brewer in 2013, when Murray County began looking for its fourth coach since Napier left the program after the 2006 season. Brewer, a 1992 Polk County High School graduate, had first-hand knowledge of how football once was in Chatsworth - he was an assistant at Southeast for nine years and Northwest Whitfield for one before being hired by Murray County - and believed those days could be revived.
"They beat our tails a few years," Brewer said with a laugh. "When I was coaching at Eastbrook (Middle School in Whitfield County) they had great teams in 2000 and 2001. Murray was so big and fast, very physical. I'm not just saying that because I'm here. That's what I'm wanting us to get back to.
"There's a lot of similarities to Polk County. You're never going to have many super athletes, but you can be tough and you can be physical. That's how we have to win games."
That's exactly how the Indians, a Region 6-AAA program, beat a Southeast team coming off a Class AAAA playoff appearance and made Murray County 1-0 for the first time since 2009.
There wasn't anything fancy in the win. Behind an offensive line Brewer calls the most improved area of the team, they won the physical battle, with quarterback Dominick Genitempo and running back Tucker Gregg each eclipsing 100 rushing yards.
Brewer, now in his third season after winning one game in 2013 and two last year, said it's a beginning. And yet it's not. The coach started what he hopes to be the rebirth of Murray football by teaching about the past.
He wanted his players to understand that losing and the Indians didn't always go hand in hand.
"When that good stuff was happening, all our kids were not born or were in diapers, so they don't know about that history," he said. "That's why we're reminding them of what happened here. It's like Tennessee coach Butch Jones says, that culture thing is what you need to establish before you can have success. That's hopefully what we started the other night by winning."
However, one win won't suddenly change the culture by itself. The dark years of the program began when the school's rising enrollment numbers caused it to be placed in the state's highest classification at the time, AAAAA. It was, in essence, a death sentence for the athletic programs, who moved into a region with large Atlanta-area schools.
It coincided with a drop in overall talent, and the move up led several top athletes to transfer to area schools. The decline went deeper when the county's school system opened North Murray in 2009, and that was made worse when the county school board did not draw district lines.
"There's just not that many people in this area when you split a school like that," Brewer said. "The school district allowed anyone to go there, and that factored in. Kids wanted to go where it was new."
District lines have since been implemented and numbers have been on the rise at Murray. The football team, which had fewer than 40 players when Brewer first arrived, now has nearly 90.
Junior Hunter Sosebee said he has heard from former players on those successful teams and realizes how much last week's win means to the community. He also said the team is aware of the program's history, which has become a motivating factor.
"Past players will sit and talk to us about when they played and how proud they are of how we played last week," Sosebee, a two-year starter, said. "It's happened to me and my friends, and when we hear those things it gets us excited about playing. We pay a good bit of attention to what was accomplished in the past, and we want to get this program back to that level. Last week was amazing, and hopefully we started earning some respect."
Murray County, which won't start school until Tuesday, hosts a similar opponent, Fannin County, tonight. Brewer knows a loss wouldn't kill the momentum, but it would cause some doubt.
He's concerned because winning is, well, new.
"We've got to handle success, because none of these kids have started 1-0," he said. "There's just something different about this team, though, that makes me think it won't be a problem."
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296; follow at Twitter@youngsports22