Every Wednesday, The Messenger will feature a Q-and-A with a local high school football coach to discuss the season, upcoming opponents and game planing.

 

 

TM: What is Pike County’s basic offensive philosophy?

 

MW: We’re a multiple offense. We like to run some two-back gun, one-back gun, I-formation. Sometimes we’ll come out in an empty. We like to switch it up and keep the defense guessing. More than anything, we’d rather be running the ball than throwing the ball, but, when people put eight or nine in the box against you, you’ve got to be able to air it out.

 

TM: What have you been doing to get the passing game going this year?

 

MW: We try to develop good route runners. Coach Denison has been working on teaching the offensive line to pass block. We’re also working on teaching the backs to do some pass protection too. All of our backs want to run the ball, and some of them don’t like working on pass protection, but, if they want to be out there, they have to block.

 

TM: The offense has been pretty successful this year putting up over 20 points in every game. What has made it so effective?

 

MW: We’ve been putting points on the board, but we still aren’t where we want to be. Turnovers have been a big deal. We can’t stop shooting ourselves in the foot on offense. Too many turnovers.

 

TM: What have you been doing to cut down on the turnovers.

 

MW: We just try to drill ball security into their heads. We run ball security drills and all that. Sometimes, when you place too much emphasis on ball security, the players get to thinking about it too much and still turn the ball over. The kids get into their own heads sometimes.

 

TM: You travel to Daleville this Friday. What have you seen from the Daleville defense that you might be able to exploit?

 

MW: They are big and physical. They run a 3-4 base. We need to be able to run the ball to set up our play-action passing