ON Air with 912 Sports

  By Kevin Price

Photos by Charles Smith

Richmond Hill knew it was bringing a physical football team into the 20024 season. 

It was one with a strong front seven on defense and a big offensive line built to overpower a defense as the Wildcats planned to employ a powerful running game. 

They felt like they had the perfect running back for the plan, too, in senior Josh Troupe, a 5-foot-11, 210-pounder who professes a love for contact. 

“I’ve gotta get hit a couple of times myself when a game starts and get that switch turned on,” Troupe says. “I’m not fully warmed up until that happens.”

Troupe, part of a large senior class for Richmond Hill, was on fire pretty much every game for the Wildcats who finished their season with a 7-3 overall record, but missed the Class AAAAAA state playoffs after going 2-3 in rugged Region 1. 

The difference in making or missing the playoff was the team’s loss at Camden County which finished fourth with the same record but got the No. 4 seed from the region by defeating Richmond Hill in their head-to-head matchup. 

Troupe closed out the 10-game schedule with 1,399 rushing yards for an average of 139.9 yards per game. Going into the last week of the regular season in the state, Troupe ranked among the top 15 for rushing yards in Georgia and was third in the largest classification according to statewide statistics on MaxPreps. 

Troupe averaged 6.3 yards per carry and scored 19 total touchdowns which also had him in the top three in the state’s largest class with a week left in the regular season. 

Last season, Troupe was a second-string running back for the Wildcats, but he played in every game and put up solid numbers for a playoff team. He carried 156 times for 799 yards, averaging 5.1 yards per carry, and scored four touchdowns. 

The Wildcats planned to feature Troupe in their run-heavy offense this season, and obviously he produced the results they desired from their standout runner who was poised for a big senior campaign, according to Richmond Hill head coach Matt LeZotte.

“He’s grown up so much in his four years playing football in our program, just with the way he practices, approaches the weight room, his attention to detail and understanding everything we’re doing on offense,” the coach said. 

“He had a phenomenal offseason, bought into everything we asked him to become and became all of that. It took him a little longer to buy in than some guys, but he started seeing the results, and he’s just taken off.”

There were at least three times when Troupe actually did more than his team really could have asked for, though no one wearing Richmond Hill colors was surprised by what they saw. Those were the three games that Troupe rushed for more than 200 yards as the Wildcats won big in the process.

Against New Hampstead, a game Richmond Hill won 47-28 in early September, he ran for a season-high 277 yards on 31 attempts and scored four touchdowns. Two weeks later in a 35-28 victory over Gainesville Buchholtz (Fla.), Troupe carried 29 times for 221 yards and three touchdowns. 

In the team’s last game, Troupe again carried 31 times for 260 yards and also two touchdowns in Richmond Hill’s loss at Colquitt County which won the region championship again this season. 

Five times during the season, Troupe ran for more than 100 yards including his 141-yard night in a region game against Valdosta when he carried 23 times and also scored three touchdowns against a talented defense that many would argue is the best in the region. Richmond Hill won that mid-October game 35-14 at home. It was the last game for the Wildcats in their current stadium. Richmond Hill is opening a new school next year and will have a new home field as well. 

All of that is pretty good for a guy who described himself as a “little chubby kid” who played on the defensive line until high school.

“I was a defensive end in middle school,” Troupe says. “The baby-fat started falling off. I was lifting weights everyday when I got to ninth-grade and started filling out my form.”

Like all of the Wildcats, Troupe went through the team’s offseason weight-training program that began soon after the end of the 2023 season. Troupe also competed in the hurdles for the Richmond Hill track team in the spring. 

But when he wasn’t in the weight room lifting with the football players or at practice with the track team, Troupe was doing speed training, sprint work and footwork drills with individual instructors. He even did yoga several times a week. 

The whole time, he was eyeing a a breakout senior season on the gridiron. 

“Your last year in high school, you always wanna go out with a bang,” Troupe said. “I knew if I wanted to go big and make it to where I wanted to make it, it was going to take more than I was doing before.”

LeZotte said Troupe made strides in several several areas, but his biggest gain was in the speed department. 

“Last year, he got in the open field and got caught a few times. This year, he hasn’t been caught from behind,” LeZotte said. “He had an 80-yard carry against New Hampstead. He outran everyone on their defense which has pretty good speed. He had a long touchdown run at the end of the game against Valdosta and outran their secondary, and that says a lot.”

Troupe increased his speed by more than 2 mph between his junior and senior seasons which might not sound like a lot but LeZotte called it an “absurd” amount in a short time. 

Put that with his improved strength and his stamina, and it’s easy to understand why Troupe is one of those running backs who often gets better the deeper the game gets.

“He’s absolutely a power-back,” LeZotte says. “He does seem to pick up steam in the third and fourth quarter. I just think his motor just runs a little bit higher which helps him late in games.”

Troupe is a competitor, too, and loves the big moment, according to his coach. He wants the ball when it’s fourth-and-one and when it’s crunch time in the fourth quarter and the game is on the line. 

“He wants the ball, embraces that role and is willing to carry that load,” LeZotte noted. “Not everyone is like that, but he is.”

Troupe talks like it’s no big deal to him. He looks at producing under pressure as his responsibility or what any good running back should do. 

“I take pride in knowing my team is counting on me,” he says. 

Troupe also has pride in his last name. It’s not something he goes around advertising, but he is the nephew of former Florida Gators tight end Ben Troupe who was an All-American as a senior and went on to play five seasons in the NFL with the Tennessee Titans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

Ben Troupe is the younger brother of Josh’s father Lucas Troupe, a former Marine who served in the Iraq war and played football while serving in the military. 

Josh has two of his uncle’s jerseys hanging up in his room, one from when he played at Florida and one from his time with the Titans. Those jerseys serve as individual motivation for him to excel in the game as well. He looks up to his uncle and says they talk or text every week. 

“We talk about life and football,” Josh said. “There’s uncle talk and football talk.” 

Josh added that he listens to any advice his uncle gives him regarding football or any feedback he offers after watching him play in a game, whether that’s from the stands or reviewing game film. 

“His critique is stuff he’s experienced before. He’s actually played and lived it,” Josh said. 

Ben Troupe, of course, is one of his nephew’s biggest fans. The former second-round choice in the 2004 NFL draft is proud of how Josh has progressed in the game. 

“He stands out, he can play,” Ben says. “If I went to a game and watched like I didn’t know him, I would be like who is this Troupe kid? He can play. Josh can play. He’s a football player.”

When asked about Josh saying he loved contact, Ben quickly said he didn’t get that from him. 

“He got that from my dad and my brother,” he said. “I didn’t like contact. I dealt with it.”

Ben did think Josh’s willingness to initiate contact is one of his biggest attributes.

“He’s like a linebacker that plays running back and he’s coming at you. He’s a thumper. He loves being the hammer. He’s put together, with big legs, big calves. He can run that thing.”

Josh Troupe hopes to play college football himself. He didn’t have any official offers coming into the season, but the Wildcats are thinking he will get some attention on the heels of his strong senior campaign. 

His game tape should be attractive to recruiters as well as his 3.7 grade-point average in the academic arena. 

“He’s grown up a lot. It’s been fun to watch him become who he is,” LeZotte said. “We knew there was something special in there and we had to find a way to draw it out.”

  By Kevin Price

Photos by Dwayne Culpepper

Coffee head coach Mike Coe had a lot of good things to say about Chris Reed when talking about his standout linebacker. 

Perhaps the biggest compliment the coach could give his senior leader was that he would hire him in a New York-minute if Reed ever wanted to coach high-school football in the future. That’s a testament to Reed as a person and a player. 

“He’s a great teammate, so you know he cares about people,” Coe said. “He’s smart as a whip, and he’s not scared to work. He loves film, and he’s gonna put the time in. He’s like a coach on the field for us now. He really is. I’d hire him in a heartbeat.”

Reed is the featured Scholar-Athlete in this edition of 912 Sports Magazine, our final issue with a major football-focus for the current prep sports season in Southeast Georgia. 

The starting middle linebacker for the Trojans, Reed puts up strong numbers on the field for Coffee under the Friday night lights and he also stars in the classroom where he holds a 3.9 grade-point average. 

Last season, Reed recorded more than 60 tackles and six sacks while intercepting a pass as a part-time starter. He played in every game for the Trojans as they went a perfect 15-0 and won the first-ever state championship in the history of the Coffee program. 

This season, the 5-foot-9, 215-pounder had already surpassed his tackle-totals for last season before the Trojans played out their schedule. Reed had 74 tackles, an average of 8.2 per game including 17 tackles for losses going into the last game of the season. He also had four quarterback sacks on his stat line along with two blocked field goals. 

Coffee finished the regular season with an 8-2 record as they lost only to Lee County and Thomas County Central in region games. Those teams finished the season ranked second and third, respectively, in Class AAAAA. The Trojans were ranked No. 7 in the state rankings after finishing out their schedule. They were set to go to the state playoffs as the No. 3 seed from Region 2-AAAAA. 

Reed isn’t the most physically-gifted player on a stout Coffee defense, and he’ll be the first to admit that. But Reed gets the most he can out of his physical abilities, and no one works harder than him to be the best they can be. 

“He’s a weight-room warrior, tough as nails,” Coe says. “He loves the weight room, loves practice. He’s just the same everyday. You know what you’re gonna get with him.”

Reed bench presses 325 pounds, squats 500 and power cleans 300 pounds. He knows the importance of strength training for him personally. 

“It’s necessary,” he said about lifting weights. “Sometimes, I don’t really like it, but I know I gotta do it. I’m already short, so I know I gotta at least be strong.”

Then, there’s that film study. There’s nothing short about Reed when it comes to this trick of the trade. 

Reed breaks down an opponent on film like he would the structure of a sentence in a 10th-grade English class or an algebraic equation in one of his math classes. 

The Coffee coaches typically send their players film on the next opponent following their Sunday coaches’ meetings each week along with written notes that serve as a basic overview of the plan for the next game. 

Like clock-work, Coffee’s linebackers coach can expect a correspondence from Reed that same Sunday night with questions and comments from the senior linebacker who is always among the first to review the film and notes. 

Reed is prepared when the Trojans go to practice and start breaking down the scouting report on the opposing offense which includes the team’s schemes, formations and plays. He has a good grasp on how the Trojans plan to defend the opponent when the coaches start going over that with the players.

“He watches as much film as the coaches,” Coe notes. “Nobody in our program watches more film than him. He knows the game plan in and out, the other team’s tendencies and what we’re going to run when he comes to practice on Monday every week.”

Again, Reed looks at film study of an opponent as a way for him to get an edge on the other guy. 

“I feel like I have to get ahead, so I can play faster during a game,” he said. “Before the ball is snapped, I want to know where it’s going. I’m not as fast as a lot of players on our team, so I want to get where I need to be as fast as I can. 

“But, I can also help guys on our team at other positions, if I think I know a certain play is coming because I’ve watched film over and over.”

Reed’s football IQ helps does help him play faster, according to Coe. But, the Coffee coach acknowledged that Reed actually has improved his speed while his overall on-field experience is a big plus this season, too. 

Last year, he played all three linebacker positions for the Trojans while filling in as a starter at all three spots and playing as a backup as well. 

This season, Reed is an unquestioned leader in the middle of the Coffee defense and the coaches trust his instincts and knowledge so much that they also allow him to call blitzes on the field once the opposing offense lines up in formation. 

“He has great eyes, great vision. He’s a great tackler, a great blitzer,” Coe said. “He doesn’t say a whole lot. He’s pretty quiet, but he plays the right way and his teammates respect that.”

When it comes to academics, Reed takes his course work seriously, too. An A-Honor Roll student, Reed has taken college prep classes throughout his four years at Coffee. 

Making good grades has been always been a priority for Reed. 

“My mom and family have always been on me about good grades. I know I have to keep good grades if I want to go to college,” Reed says. 

Reed enjoys studying history and learning about the past. 

Reed does more than go to school and play football, though. He also works at a local Dollar General on weekends during football season and more often when he doesn’t have football after school. Of course, he has worked throughout the summer months while training with the Trojans for the next season. 

He does hope to go to college next year to continue his education and football career. He currently has a scholarship offer from Reinhardt University in Waleska and other offers could come his way between now and the February signing day.