Ware County head coach is looking forward to the first of two bye weeks for his Gator football program.
This week’s open date couldn’t come at a better time as injuries have forced the coaching staff to find replacements on a weekly basis. The off week will also give Strickland and his staff a chance to make corrections on both sides of the ball.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff we need to work on,” said Strickland, who’s team is 2-2 and ranked ninth in Class 4A. “We had film study Monday morning and we’re giving the guys the afternoon off. We’ll be back on the grass Tuesday through Thursday. We’re going to use the time to evaluate personnel and see if we need to make some positional moves that will help or personnel moves to be better in certain positions.”
Defensively, Ware County gave up several big plays in the 43-42 shootout loss to Bartram Trail. The Bears scored on the first snap with a 83-yard run and had an 80-yard scoring toss in the fourth quarter. There was also a 72-yard scoring run. The three scores accounted for 235 of Bartram Trails’ 525 yards of total offense.
“We’ve got to do a better job at coaching the players to have better eye discipline,” said Strickland of his defensive players. “We haven’t been very good with that aspect. We’ve also got to do a better job of moving our feet and matching gaps at the line of scrimmage to be sound.
“If we get better at those two things then we won’t be giving up the explosive plays.”
Offensively, the ground game suffered before the first game of the season with the loss of North Carolina State commit R.J. Boyd. A running back by committee of four dwindled to Jamir Boyd last week.
Strickland and his staff moved junior tight end Tayshaun Franklin to the backfield. He responded with 16 carries for 99 yards after a week of practice.
“He was huge for us,” Strickland said of Franklin’s performance. “We had no other running backs available. He was able to fight for yards to help us convert on thirdand short situations. He’s going to grow into that role in the backfield. What he did making that move shows he’s a great teammate.”
Besides trying to get Franklin up to speed from the running back position, Strickland wants to work on pass protection.
“We’ve got to take advantage when teams load up to stop the run forcing us to pass,” said the head coach.
Strickland was happy with his team for fighting back after falling behind 21-0 in the first quarter.
“We started really, really slow,” he said. “We fought back and gave ourself a chance to win with great effort and fight.”
