Trojans get to work with Willeford at helm

Southern Sass/Special to the News-Times

Making a tackle: In this file photo, Parkers Chapel’s Payton Willeford makes a tackle during the Trojans’ contest against Spring Hill at Victor Nipper Stadium during the 2022 season. Josh Willeford was selected as PC’s new football coach on Friday. The Trojans held their first workout with Willeford leading the program on Tuesday.
Southern Sass/Special to the News-Times Making a tackle: In this file photo, Parkers Chapel’s Payton Willeford makes a tackle during the Trojans’ contest against Spring Hill at Victor Nipper Stadium during the 2022 season. Josh Willeford was selected as PC’s new football coach on Friday. The Trojans held their first workout with Willeford leading the program on Tuesday.

Since becoming Parkers Chapel’s football coach on Friday, Josh Willeford has been rather busy.

On Tuesday, the Trojans held their first workout with Willeford at the helm.

“We had our first workout of the year this morning,” Willeford said. “I was pretty pleased with the varsity numbers. The junior high numbers need to come up a little bit, but pleased for the first one. The kids seemed excited to be in there, and that’s exciting for me.”

Willeford said he had 14 players out for the varsity and 18 for junior high, but added he could have some additions to those numbers with workouts in the afternoon.

Willeford, who has previously been the head coach at Homer (La.), decided to apply for the position after Elliot Jacobs stepped down as head coach and athletic director to take a coaching post at El Dorado.

“When he resigned, I threw my name in the hat,” Willeford said. “I think coach (Jacob) Midyett leaving as well kind of opened the door for me to step in. From what they said, my previous relationship with the kids and understanding how things are working here and just my passion for the game and the kids here was the one that gave me the chance to step into this position.”

Since getting the job, Willeford has been trying to get everything organized.

“Since then, it’s been a whirlwind,” Willeford said. “It’s hard to replace guys like Elliot Jacobs and Jacob Midyett. They’re phenomenal coaches. Their X’s and O’s knowledge has always impressed me. I’m going to miss them on a friendship level, but I’m excited about the job and take it and mold it with my personality and see where we go from there.”

Willeford said responsibilities for the coaching staff are up in the air.

“Right now, we don’t know which direction we’re going to go,” Willeford said. “We’re going to hire one more assistant. I guess I’ll be doing whatever is the best fit for what we need. I’ve been an offensive coordinator before, I’ve got defensive coordinator experience, I’ve got special teams coordinator experience. I just want to try to get a solid staff together, find what all of our strengths are, blend them together and give our kids the best chance to win with that.”

The Trojans dropped to eight-man football last summer, and Willeford said he is looking forward to Year 2.

“I’m actually grateful as a parent that we went to eight-man last year so that my son got his final year of football,” Willeford said. “I truly believe that if we hadn’t dropped down to eight-man with the numbers we had coming off of the dead period, it would’ve been very difficult to field a team for the entire year. With us dropping down to eight-man, it gave us a chance to compete and those kids got an opportunity to play the game of football.

“Football is not always about wins and losses on the scoreboard. That’s our ultimate goal and what we want to get to, but to get there, we need to look at the small wins, and just being able to compete was a small win for us. This year, we have a better understanding of how the game works and what we need to do to be more successful. We move into a different conference this year, we actually get to compete for the playoffs and a state championship. I think that’s really exciting for the kids this year.”

As far as the summer goes, Willeford wants his players to work hard in the weight room.

“We need to continue to get after it in the weight room,” Willeford said. “That’s priority No. 1. Not only for the strength aspect of it, but for the team building that comes with it, the positivity and mental state that comes with having success in the weight room and hitting new maxes, plus the injury-prevention side of it is important to us too. After weights this morning, I spent the rest of the morning trying to find us some ways to compete this summer. I think I’ve got it to where we have the possibility of doing 6-on-6’s in eight-man with a possible team camp. Those are some goals for us since we didn’t really get a spring practice, getting to install what we’re going to run. I think it’s pretty important for us to get a chance to do some of that and work on it against somebody besides ourselves and get a true assessment of where we’re at.” 

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