Dixie: Senior laden team

First year coach Sam Watson will be leading the Dixie Greyhound football team this fall. But since he has been an assistant coach at Dixie the past couple of seasons – he is not new to the players.  The team will still be running a spread offense as they have done in the past and a hard-nosed, tough defense.  And the team returns key starters at the skill positions on offense.  That makes things easier for a first year head coach – a familiar system and experienced players.

The team has a decent crop of seniors - and a total of 8 on offense. 4 year starter senior Luke Bowling will be the quarterback. Coach Watson, ”Luke is a very good talent for us, he is definitely a big asset”.   Travis Wright, another senior, will play receiver and defensive back. Fellow senior Ryan Jordan, who set the single game rushing record at Dixie last season will be back as well on offense. Coach Watson, “Ryan is a big plus for us he is a big play maker on both offense and defense”.  On defense,  Matt Isaacs yet another senior is back, he got post season accolades last year as linebacker.  Coach Watson, “Isaacs was second in the area in tackles last year – he is definitely the leader on defense”.

Another key player who has not played with Dixie for the last few years is Solomon Shepard.  He is back at Dixie for his senior year.  Coach Watson, “We are happy to have him back – he is a good lineman, we are expecting him to contribute both on offense and defense. He is a good asset to have. And I expect all my kids to be ready on Friday nights , we are a small school and they need to be ready if I need to put them in.”

Coach Watson first commented on the North scrimmage: ‘Some of the things I liked about it were the we played as a unit and we played together, the team camaraderie,  it was a positive experience.  We do need to get better at running our stuff, and there is a lot of fine tuning we need to do.  But I think we will accomplish that in short order. “

 On expectations: “They know what we expect and they actually have high expectations for themselves.  The expectations are that we will be competitive game in and game out every single week.  We are going to play hard nonstop and give everything we have every Friday night. “

On TVS: “I expect South to be a very competitive program. Their coach has done a very good job of getting kids out and getting the program up and running. I expect very tough completion between them and us.  We have similar style offenses and both schools have tough hard-nosed defenses that are very aggressive.  But it will be tough for the defenses to stop the offenses because they both execute very well.  I can’t praise South enough, they are doing a great job with that program  - getting it back on its feet and moving the right direction.

Last season the team was 4-6, but depending on how the team gels behind Watson the team should be better. The Greyhounds will host TVS on Friday August 24.