That offense took a little getting used to in 2009, but the Bulldogs seem to be peaking at the right time as they enter this week’s first round game on a four-game winning streak.
Fossett said the offense has come together in the past three weeks.
“We put in a completely different offense so we knew coming into it that we may have some hiccups,” Fossett said after practice on Wednesday. “We were prepared for those and we practiced through them. We’ve gotten progressively better. I think the offense has really come into its own over the past three weeks. We’ve really shown that we’re diverse and that we can do a lot of different things.”
The new offense has allowed Winterboro to showcase several of its athletes this season. Josh Taylor, Bacardy McClendon, Luransa Hardy and Courtney Evans have found success in the new system. All four guys said the success came after a lot of hard work.
“We had to just keep practicing and keep going hard everyday,” Hardy said of learning the new system.
Taylor, the sophomore signal caller, said he felt some pressure to pick up the new offense and be a leader on the field this year.
“It was hard at first learning to read the defensive ends all the stuff the coaches told us to do,” Taylor said. “Just learning how to not be so selfish sometimes with the option. Keeping everybody else in check when we first started with the motions and everything. If I mess up everything goes wrong. Keeping everybody else in check as the quarterback, being the leader on the field.”
Evans said after getting the plays down, actually executing the game plan wasn’t that hard.
“It was hard to learn, but we got out there and it was easy after we learned how to do it,” Evans said.
Winterboro has outscored opponents 282-127 this year. While the offense has put up points, Taylor said strong play from the defense has been a big help as the offensive players were getting used to new plays.
“Against Thorsby most of our points came off of defensive turnovers,” Taylor said. “I play some defense too. I love to play defense. Having a great defense is very great. It’s true defense wins games.”
Winterboro will look to use its speed to get to the corner against A.L. Johnson on Friday. McClendon thinks that’s something their opponents will try to stop, but the junior believes his team can win the game by limiting errors.
“They’re going to try to stop us from going outside,” McClendon said. “I think we’ve got more speed than they do. We’ve got to play a great game, no fumbles, no mistakes.”
