Player Spotlight/South Georgia/October 2013
Mac Loudermilk
Valdosta High School Valdosta, Georgia
Robert Preston Jr.
Multi-faceted senior shows skills at quarterback, tight end, fullback.
The road to the 2013 football season meandered one for Valdosta High senior Mac Loudermilk. The son of VHS assistant Mark Loudermilk, Mac and his family moved to Valdosta four years ago when then-newly hired head coach Rance Gillespie offered Mark Loudermilk a job with the Wildcats. Mark Loudermilk had been on staff with Gillespie at a couple of his previous positions. Gillespie wanted to reunite with Loudermilk, who was at Cedartown at the time.
Mark Loudermilk accepted Gillespie’s offer and the family headed south. “I love being down here in Valdosta. It’s been more than I ever thought it would be. They eat, live, and breathe football down here. So do I,” he says. At the time, Mac Loudermilk was a freshman quarterback. He spent some time at fullback as a sophomore and eventually found a home in the backfield. Last season, Loudermilk developed into a very good blocker and it appeared as though that’s where he would spend the majority of his senior season. He started 2013, however, at tight end. Then Cole Massengill, Valdosta’s starting quarterback, went down with a torn ACL, leaving a gaping hole at the quarterback position. Massengill’s injury opened the door for Loudermilk to resume his career under center.
Massengill had an ironclad lock on the quarterback position. Now Loudermilk and Craig Berry share quarterback duties. “Both of us can run any play in the playbook. We know what to do in any given formation on any given play,” says Loudermilk.
That’s no easy feat – Gillespie’s offense is one of the more complex high school schemes in the state. It’s a big change for Loudermilk, who grew up thinking he would be running Cedartown’s flexbone offense by now.“At Cedartown, our plays were just two words.They were very simple. Here at Valdosta, some plays have as many as eight words and every word means something. There aren’t any dummy words in the plays at all,” he says. Despite the complexity, Gillespie has a way of explaining things so that his players understand what’s going on. “He always tells us to relax and have fun. He’s very good at explaining blitzes and coverages. He can tell what kind of coverage a defense is in simply by looking at the defensive front. He’s very educated when it comes to football and he’s good at teaching the game to his players.”Moving to Valdosta has provided Loudermilk with some great memories, both on the field and off. The greatest memory of them all so far was the 2011 Winnersville Classic.In that now famous game, Valdosta came from behind to win, 21-17, late in the fourth quarter. Down by 10 with under a minute left in the game, the Wildcats scored two touchdowns to defeat Lowndes for the first time in seven years. Loudermilk, then a sophomore, was the punter on that team.“As time was winding down, I really thought we had a shot to pull it off. I knew we were going to win that game,” he says. Lowndes returned the favor last year on Gustavo Gonzalez’s last-second field goal to win the 2012 edition of the Classic. “We had several chances to win that game. It shouldn’t have come down to a field goal. But you have to give credit to Lowndes – they did a great job to win. I thought if we could have gotten into overtime, we had a shot.
The 6’2”, 220-pound Loudermilk has spent all of his life around football coaches. He has paid attention to the conversations going on around him and he has benefitted from what amounts to 18 years of one-on-one tutoring with some of the best high school football coaches in the state. Loudermilk understands the nuances of football, the little things that some players are never able to fully grasp. His knowledge of football combined with his athleticismand size is one of the reasons he is such a versatile weapon. 
Earlier this year, Loudermilk, who had offers from several different schools throughout the country, committed to the University of Central Florida. The Knights recruited Loudermilk as a punter and a possible H-back. “Central Florida runs an offense similar to what we do. I’m obviously very comfortable in that scheme,” says Loudermilk. X’s and O’s aside, Loudermilk chose Central Florida because, quite simply, he felt UCF provides the best opportunity for him to realize his ultimate goal, which is to play in the NFL. There were offers from other schools, most notably the Naval Academy, but the five-year commitment after graduation made him nervous. Plus Orlando is a lot closer to home than Annapolis. “My family will be able to see me play more at Central Florida,” he says.With his college choice taken care of, the preseason All-State player can spend the next couple of months solely focused on helping his Wildcats get back to the top of Georgia’s high school football heap. “We want to go 15 games and win the state title. That’s our goal this year,” he says.Sidebar:The University of Central Florida and its head coach, George O’Leary, have committed to recruiting players from South Georgia in recent years, and Mac Loudermilk is one of at least three players from the area who have decided to play for the Knights. Loudermilk joins Coffee High’s Wyatt Miller and Berrien High’s A.J. Wooten as members of Central Florida’s recruiting class of 2014.
Favorites:
Team: besides Central Florida: Alabama Crimson Tide or Florida Gators
Player: Tim Tebo
Subject: Science
Least favorite: English
Last movie: 300
Sport you wish you could play: Lacrosse
Coke or Pepsi: Coke
Superpower: Speed
Person to meet: Tim Tebow. “He’s a perfect role model. I admire him and what he stands for.”
