Suspensions of 35 Gainesville Football Players Upheld Following Brawl with Brunswick

GHSA Board of Trustees clears four Red Elephants to play this week; Gainesville coach Josh Niblett speaks out

Gainesville football coach Josh Niblett spoke out about the incident that led to 39 of his players being suspended for this week's playoff game with Langston Hughes. / High5Sports

The Georgia High School Association (GHSA) Board of Trustees heard an appeal from Gainesville High School, Tuesday morning, and upheld the suspensions of 35 Red Elephant football players which it announced on Monday. Four others had their ejections and suspensions lifted, clearing the way for them to play this week.

The suspensions stemmed from Friday's brawl with Brunswick

Gainesville and Brunswick High School engaged in a game ending brawl, late in the third quarter of last Friday’s Class 5A state playoff game. Gainesville, which was leading 42-0 at the time of the incident, was declared the winner when the game was halted, but now it faces uphill challenge in its quest to continue on in the 5A playoffs.

Gainesville coach Josh Niblett defends his players

Gainesville head coach Josh Niblett spoke out, in an interview with High5Sports, Monday evening, and defended his players.

“If something happened on the field, and your sister or brother was on the field, and you felt like they were being taken advantage of, or they couldn’t defend themselves, what would you do?” asked Niblett.

“Our kids didn’t go out there to instigate anything. Our kids went out there to have each other’s back and to protect each other. You have a guy out there with his helmet off and hands up that gets hit, side-swiped. I don’t know what else you want the kids to do – just stand there and watch it happen. Our guys are not going to do that because they love each other. It ain’t got nothing to do with anything else. It’s just they love each other and they’re unified. They’re a team.

“Nobody else was doing anything to stop it. I hate it happened. At the same time, our players are going to protect each other.”

Niblett also criticized some of the reactions to the incident from those who did not witness the entire game.

“There’s a lot of people out there who have these opinion about it,” added Niblett. “If you weren’t there for the whole game, if you weren’t there in between plays, if you didn’t get to see the whole thing, you don’t have any idea. So, you really don’t even need to talk about it. That’s probably my biggest issue. Unless you were there and saw the whole thing, you don’t understand.”

The GHSA's original ruling

The GHSA announced its original decision with the following statement on X.com.

"Friday night’s second-round Class 5A playoff matchup between Gainesville and Brunswick took an unfortunate turn when a fight broke out near the end of the third quarter.

"Following a review of the incident, the GHSA, announced that 39 Gainesville players have been suspended for this week’s state quarterfinal game along with a $5,000 fine. Gainesville is scheduled to face Langston Hughes this Friday."

The appeal cleared four players

The Board of Trustees led by GHSA Executive Director Dr. Tim Scott listened to impassioned pleas from Niblett and other representatives of Gainesville. Requests were made to delay any suspensions to next season, but this was denied because the request is outside the GHSA bylaws.

The board did approve two different motions which each lifted the ejections and suspensions of two players, for a total of four. A second motion to do the same for eight additional players was denied.