By Trey Hunter
Sports Editor
With spring sports all wrapped up, that can mean only one thing for high school athletics in the state of Oklahoma. It’s officially football season.
Jeff Hall is entering his first spring session as the new head coach at Piedmont and after nearly two weeks of practice his excitement level is high to say the least. He sees multiple aspects of the team and program changing and a culture and atmosphere developing.
“I’m some of these kids’ third coach in four years,” Hall said after practice Tuesday at F&M Bank Stadium. “They’ve adapted to change a little bit already so some things that are new for most teams aren’t new for them. They want to succeed and the attitude has been awesome. It’s very evident how quickly they pick stuff up and right now it’s learning it and applying the techniques we teach.”
Hall is all about technique. He and his staff believe in technique over scheme and it was evident at practice Tuesday. Players and coaches divided into position groups and worked more on how than when and where.
“We want to ask them to understand how to do it and then talk about scheme,” Hall said of his staff’s priorities in the spring practices this year. “Instilling technique is more important than scheme right now. The worst thing we can do is make them think too much at this point because we want how they are doing things to become second nature. Thinking is important of course, but sometimes that can slow you down.”
Intensity was at a high Tuesday as players started practice with position drills as well as instruction. Hall is looking to instill an up-tempo atmosphere to give not just the first teams more reps, but to work in backups as well.
“Most coaches want a good tempo from drill to drill,” Hall said. “I think the biggest difference in the way we practice is the twos and threes are going to get the same amount of reps as the ones. The fact that we speed things up in practice helps us offensively and defensively because we want to out-execute our opponents. With more reps we can do that. With a faster tempo we get more reps.”
Hall sees a size advantage for his team up front and at wide receiver.
“Come watch our practice and one thing you notice is our overall size,” he said. “Up front we’re really big and as our kids are learning they’re getting faster. That extends into the wide receiver position as well. We have four big, tall kids that can run and block out there. In the flex-bone system, you have to be able to run and catch, but most important is being able to block down field. All four guys are doing a good job of working on that.”
Piedmont travels to Bethany Friday for spring team camp from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Bethany High School. It will be the first time Hall and his staff can record the team and evaluate with film.
“The biggest thing for us right now is getting kids on film and being able to evaluate from there,” he said. “We haven’t done a whole lot of live stuff because we’ve been doing a lot of learning. We’ll be able to see what our strengths and witnesses. No one spot is anchored down so getting that film will be priceless.”
Following team camp, spring practice and summer pride, the Wildcats will break for the summer and return in the fall for the opening practices of the 2019 season.
