MOULTRIE — The Randolph-Clay High football team will bus from Cuthbert to Colquitt County on Friday for its season-opener with a heavy heart.

Kerry English, the Red Devils first-year coach, will not be with team as he remains with his family in north Georgia following the death this week of his sister.

Tyrone Kellogg, the Randolph-Clay athletic director, said that English’s mother died when he was young and he was raised by his sister.

The funeral will be held on Saturday, Kellogg said.

The absence of their coach for the opener is just the latest in list of problems the Randolph-Clay football team has had in recent months.

Richard Lawson, who led the Red Devils to a 6-4 record last season in his only year as head coach, left in the spring and the school scrambled to find a successor.

A new defensive coordinator hired from Florida was offered the job, but declined and decided to stay in Florida.

English, a former assistant at Thomasville and Albany, accepted the job last month.

He led the team in its 14-6 scrimmage loss to Marion County, then immediately left the team to be with his family.

“Everything has just been a slow process,” said Kellogg, who also is the school’s head boys basketball coach, a job he previously held at Thomasville High.

Kellogg, who served as the offensive coordinator last year, had not expected to be on the football coaching staff this season, but will run the team in Moultrie on Friday.

And it will be a team that will depend on underclassmen. The Red Devils, who had 20 seniors last year when they went 6-4, have just four seniors this season.

“We are extremely young,” Kellogg said. “We are just trying to get better each and every day.”

The offensive and defensive lines on the 2007 team were made up of seniors. The secondary had three seniors and one freshman.

That one freshman could turn out to be an outstanding player.