by Mark Turner
White County News
Football is in the air, at least the spring version of the sport as the White County Warriors are set to wrap up two weeks of practice with a spring game Friday night in Gainesville.
More than 80 players have been taking part in the spring workouts, trying to lay the foundation for the 2025 season.
“It's been awesome so far,” WCHS head coach Chad Bennett said following Tuesday's practice. “I love the energy, effort and enthusiasm they've shown so far. We have a long way to go to become a good football team, but it has been a good week and a half so far.”
The Warriors came into the spring with a lot of question marks as they are losing a larger number of players from last year's squad. Bennett said starting the evaluation process has been one of the most important things this spring.
“We lost a lot to graduation, so this spring has been about getting on the turf and start evaluating our players,” Bennett said. “We've only got two guys back that started on defense last year in Gaines Clark and Zach Godfrey, so we've got to find out who can play and start developing our identity on defense. We have to see what we have and decide what scheme fits our personnel best. We'll get a chance to see some guys in different positions when we go down to East Hall on Friday.”
The Warriors lost nine starters on defense and several more on the offensive unit, meaning Bennett and the staff have to find a lot of players by the time the regular season kicks off in August.
“Offensively, it starts at quarterback, and we've been fortunate that our last two starters (Tripp Nix and J Ben Haynes) were four-year guys and they were both dual-threat type players,” Bennett said. “This group of quarterbacks are more pocket type guys, so we'll have to do some different things. We also don't have a lot of receivers in the program, so we are learning to play with a tight end. It's my job to find out what this group of offensive players can do and tailor our scheme to their strengths.”
Along with a lot of new faces on the field, Bennett also will have a lot of new faces on the coaching staff next fall when the regular season kicks off.
In fact, the Warriors will have almost a entirely different defensive staff, with the departure of former defensive coordinator Logan Head, along with Matt Mundy and Wesley Simonton. Micah Adams, who coaches the cornerbacks, is the lone coach returning to the defensive staff.
“I'm not going to lie, it's been a difficult off-season since we don't have all the coaches here yet,” Bennett said. “We've had to have some of the middle school coaches come down and help us with spring practice. When it's all said and done, we'll have a new defensive coordinator, a new defensive line coach, a new linebacker coach, a new defensive coach and a new running back coach on the offensive side. There's definitely been a shake up on our staff and we're still trying to get the defensive staff together. Sometimes it's good to have some new ideas on the staff. The new guys are veteran guys that have been coaching for a while and we're excited about it.”
The Warriors will wrap up the spring with a scrimmage Friday night at East Hall, with the kickoff set for 7 p.m.
The team will have a couple of weeks off before beginning summer workouts in early June following the first of two mandated dead weeks.
The team will have three weeks of workouts in June, before resuming the summer program in early July.