NOTE: There are only 30 days left until the start of the 2015 high school football season -- both around the state and right here in northeast Georgia. With that in mind, AccessWDUN is already in full preparation mode. Over the next three weeks we will give you a sneak peek of what’s in store for 2015 with our "Two-A-Days" series. We will bring you two key questions -- and answers -- for each program in our coverage area, twice a day. Each morning will start a new program, with another highlighted each afternoon. And at the end of each week we will also provide some video footage and commentary from area coaches. Programs will run in alphabetical order.
Coach Gary Downs did his best to get Riverside Military Academy football on a footing similar to those teams that the Eagles play against. And that’s not easy at a boarding school where many of the students are unable to attend summer workouts and training – as they live in another town, state or nation.
When Downs left after last season to take a job at East Tennessee State, newly-promoted head coach Kelly Davis determined to continue that trend.
That said, this is now Davis’ team, and the Eagles will be more than just a carbon copy of Downs’ Riverside squads. We caught up with coach Davis, who is now in his fourth year at the Academy, to talk about his team’s work this summer and how he is getting a far-flung group of players together in preparation for the 2015 campaign.
QUESTION: Last year (former coach) Gary Downs made an effort to get Riverside football into a summer mode more similar to what non-boarding schools experience. Are you continuing that trend? What have you been able to accomplish this summer?
ANSWER: Having the experience with Riverside allowed me to formulate my plan back in the early spring. We did forego spring (practice) so we could try to have two scrimmages for the fall. I think that will benefit us because we have a good core of kids that are coming back and some that are even in summer school right now with us. But we begin camp a little later than everyone else, so having the two scrimmages will help us get to where we need to when we start the regular season. We’ve been hitting the weight room really hard. That’s been one of the keys for us over the spring and summer. We’ve been able to kind of springboard from last year. We participated in some 7-on-7s this year. We’re actually participating in one this coming Thursday at Stone Mountain High School. The parents have been great. We have a lot of kids from the metro-Atlanta area, and we’ve actually been able to get them to carpool and we’ll meet them in different locations and take a van and pick up six or seven kids and bring them back to the school so we can work out. We are getting some Gainesville kids, some local kids from Forsyth County and Hall County that are able to drive over, so on a typical day we’re able to have about 18-20 kids in the weight room, so that’s been a big, big plus for us -- and being able to be out on the field and doing some conditioning too is going to help us in the fall.
QUESTION: How do you want your first team at Riverside to play versus the last few teams you assisted on?
ANSWER: We’re going to do things a little bit different -- defensively, we’re going to do things pretty much the same. We were a pretty good defense last year. I think we were ranked No. 12 in (Class) AA at the end of the season. We gave up just about 16 points per game, so we’re going to try and build off that. Offensively, we’re going to change it up just a little bit. I brought in an offensive coordinator that I’ve worked with in some All-Star games and coached against a few times (Fred Shambry). He’s coming from Troup County, and last year he was at Grady High School. So we’re going to try and get to running the football, play good defense and be really solid on special teams. I think that’s kind of the formula we look at at Riverside to say that can help us do well. We do have some athletes -- we won the Region 8-AA track last year -- and we are getting some of those kids back. So we’re going to try and use some of our speed and athleticism a little differently on offense this year.
COMING UP NEXT: Stephens County
