Knights look for momentum in Harrell’s second season

OAKWOOD — Johnson football will have something this year that it hasn’t had in a while: head coaching stability.

For the first time since 2018, the Knights will enter the season under the same head coach they had the year before. As William Harrell enters his second season in Oakwood, however, he says they will need to build more continuity if they hope to start turning the program’s fates around.

“As far as our staff, we’ve had a number of guys that have accepted positions elsewhere and one of our coaches retired,” Harrell said. “We’ve got to have a core staff that’s going to be here longer than just one year because it’s going to be about relationships at this school, I think, more so than any other school in Hall County.”

To say that Harrell’s first season at Johnson did not go according to plan would be a major understatement. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented Harrell or any of the staff from meeting players face-to-face for well over a month after he took the job.

That exacerbated a thin roster that was already looking to replace a large senior class, and the youth and lack of depth showed when the team hit the field in the fall. The Knights went 0-9, marking their first winless season since 2017.

While spring and early summer participation seems to indicate low roster numbers again this year, Harrell says he feels good about the players returning for 2021.

“It’s been a season of change, but at the same time it’s been really good in the sense that we’ve got a core group of guys who have been working consistently and have really just done a great job of transitioning to the new coaches we have coming in,” Harrell said.

“We’ve got a sophomore class that makes up about half our team, so if we can keep them engaged, I think we’ll have a situation where we can build off of that.”

As Harrell builds rapport with his team, he says he is also adapting his schemes to what he believes the Knights will need to do to be successful. The biggest system changes this year will be on offense.

Johnson will switch from the single-wing offense they ran in 2020 and that Harrell ran at his previous stint at Hephzibah to a multiple pro-style set.

“The personnel that we have is just not a group that really fits into the single-wing system that we had,” Harrell said. “We’ll be able to go under center, go into the gun, go in the pistol. We’ll still use the same blocking concepts, but have the quarterback be more of a passer and give him the opportunity to beat people with his arm.”

That quarterback will be junior Michael Thurmond, who started most of last season after an injury to starter Justin Long.

Johnson will return Antrevious Jackson at running back, who Harrell said may be the best athlete on the roster. He’ll be joined in the backfield by Jud Farmer.

The youngest position group on the offensive side will be receiver. Jake Shaw will return as a senior at tight end and will likely be the top target. Sophomore Linus Griffith will be team’s top wide receiver entering the season.

On the offensive line, Alan Gutierrez will return to start at right tackle after a strong junior campaign. He’ll be joined by sophomore Guillermo Rosales, who Harrell says will bring size and physicality to the unit.

“We’ve got a couple of guys there that have some experience and we’re going to definitely need them to try to extend games and kill the clock,” Harrell said of the line.

While not as distinct as the offensive system changes, the Knights will also be changing up their defensive alignments. The team will move from a 3-4 to a multiple front that will shift between three and four-man lines.

“If we face a team that likes to run a lot of RPO’s, we’ll go to a three-man front. Teams that like to use an H-back or a tight end, we’ll get into a four-man front and try to make sure that we can set the edge,” Harrell said.

The strength of the defense looks to be on that line of scrimmage where they return two starters from last year in Alan Gutierrez and Jesse Contreras. Braden Cook and Jake Shaw will also rotate in the unit. Both saw significant playing time at the position in 2020.

The linebacker position may be the thinnest on the roster. Jackson will return as a starter, but Harrell said the rest of the corps will likely be in flux.

Farmer and Griffith will start at safety in the defensive backfield.

Johnson’s schedule will open with one of its biggest challenges as they host Hall County foe Cherokee Bluff in week one. After a BYE week, they’ll travel across town to face arch-rival West Hall in the annual “Battle of Oakwood” before returning home to close out the non-region schedule with East Hall.

Once in region play, things will not get easier, as the Knights once again play in the highly competitive Region 8-5A. They open region play in week five at Eastside before returning home to face Loganville. They will close out the regular season in week eleven on the road at two-time defending region champion Clarke Central in Athens.

Harrell says he expects region play to be tough every week.

“I knew the region was going to be tough, but what we found out and I think even the state found out last year is this region is even tougher than people realized,” Harrell said. “We’ve definitely got our work cut out for us as far as our preparation. The only thing we can do is control what we can control, which is ourselves.”

When Harrell arrived at Johnson in 2020, he said he expected the reconstruction of the program to take more than just one year. He said the biggest step the Knights need to take this year is systemic ones.

“I want us to go ahead and build some continuity and that’s going to take longer than just this season,” Harrell said. “We’ve got to make sure that kids first and foremost learn to trust us and learn to know that we love them, not just by praising them and congratulating them when they do well, but holding them accountable.”

There have been some changes to the athletic facilities at Johnson High School over the last three years, including a new field house and now a turf field that was installed this summer. However, Harrell says he wants his players to earn everything they get.

“In spring practice, we went to our old-school helmets and the kids didn’t like it, but we did that because we wanted to make sure they knew if you’re going to wear these white helmets, you’ve got to put some time in. You can’t just show up day one or day two and get all the brand-new stuff,” Harrell said.

“They’ve got to earn good things. They have to work to get the reward. That’s what we’re trying to get across to them.”

The question will be if Johnson can reap some rewards on the field this fall.