Eagles eager to bounce back
Mathis is hoping his team learns lessons, shows improvement and catches a few breaks after a tough 2021 season.
It was a tough 2021 season for the Coosa Eagles as every break seemed to go against them, and they couldn’t seem to get any sustained positive momentum going during a 1-9 campaign.
But all of that is in the past, and head coach Joey Mathis said all his team can do is learn from it and move forward. That’s what the Eagles intend to do in 2022 as Mathis heads into his third season at the helm, and he has plenty of upperclassmen to lean on to help turn things around.
“Last year definitely did not go as planned…we seemed to have a great offseason leading up to it and great practices, but every game we just had some bad turnovers or a missed alignment or special teams mistakes that really cost us,” said Mathis. “When you do those things you are going to get beat, plain and simple. We had some positives during games…a good offensive drive or a big defensive stop, but we just couldn’t put it together enough to have success like we wanted to.
“The good thing is we have a lot of experienced, talented kids coming back, and the players and coaches returning know we have to be better in every category. This is the third year in this program, and we have a lot of seniors with tremendous leadership. We’re looking forward to getting things going in the right direction this season.”
After a disappointing season like the Eagles had in 2021 there is always reflection and change to try to put the program in a better position to have success. Mathis said he has looked at several different areas in order to get things back on track.
“Any time you have a season like that, you really need to evaluate things from top to bottom,” said Mathis. “We’ve had some coaches that have moved on by their own choice, and we’ve replaced them with some new guys that we are really excited about having
on staff. Our whole coaching staff has been tremendous this offseason. They show up and work every day to help improve the program. We’ve visited clinics and conferences that help us see different perspectives as coaches, and we have tried to figure out how we can be better for our players.”
A chunk of the experience returning for the Eagles comes at the skill positions on the offensive side of the ball. DJ Hames is a playmaker that was utilized as a running back, receiver, kick returner and defensive back last season and should have a strong senior season this fall. Josh Dixon came on strong as a running back late in 2021 and is back again to provide carries and stability in the backfield, and quarterback Hayden McBurnett returns after a full year of starting under center. Connor Soales is the leader on the offensive line and will help a younger group develop more consistency.
“We made a change with Tayler Owenby taking over at offensive coordinator, and he inherits a veteran group, especially our skill players,” said Mathis. “We return a few up front, but we’re still young up there. We’ve really worked with them on our schemes,
and how they progress early in the season in our non-region games will really affect how well we play when we get to the region schedule.”
On the defensive side, the Eagles will return several key players as well, but much the same as the offense, will be looking for some new names to emerge up front. Some of the same players mentioned earlier as key offensive pieces will be asked to play both ways, including Hames at outside linebacker, Dixon at free safety and Soales some on the defensive line. Andrew Holt is the team’s top linebacker, and Harley Brock is a consistent defensive back.
“We’ve got a lot back defensively, but we’re replacing almost all of our defensive line production from last year,” said Mathis. “We’ve spent a lot of time with that group, especially our new defensive line coach David Boaz. He has done a really good job of teaching those kids. Behind them we have some good experience at linebacker and defensive back. We do need to develop some depth so we don’t have to play all of our key guys both ways for full games. We need some of our younger kids to step up, and we need to stay healthy.”
The Eagles will have a new region to call home this season after the GHSA’s latest reclassification as they will play in Region 7-A Divison-I.
Some of the teams on the schedule are familiar with Pepperell, Chattooga and Dade County also moving down from Class AA, and some are new, including Darlington, Armuchee and Trion.
“We know it’s going to be a tough challenge in this region with a lot of teams that always compete for playoff spots and region titles,” said Mathis. “We’ve got to have solid gameplans and play to our full potential every week to be in the hunt at the end.”
Coosa will open the season at home on Aug. 19 by hosting Southeast Whitfield. After three more non-region tests, they will begin the region schedule with a home game against Armuchee on Sept. 23.
Mathis said they have identified multiple keys to focus on this season in order to stay in games and potentially add several more in the win column.
“When we headed into this past offseason, we knew that turnovers and special teams miscues really hurt us and we had to clean those up,” said Mathis. “Defensively, we’ve got to get third-down stops and not let teams keep drives going against us. We’ve put a lot of emphasis on those things this year. We’ve got the experience coming back to be a dangerous team. We just have to play to our strengths and have some breaks go in our favor this year. We hopefully used up all the bad breaks last year.”