Lions plan on building off strong 2021 finish
♦ Humphreys counting on defense to lead the way early as offense matures
The Unity Christian Lions did what coaches love to see last year as they learned from early struggles, continued to improve and played their best football late in the season when it mattered most.
Now after an 8-4 season in 2021 in which the team advanced to the third round of the GAPPS I-AA playoffs, head coach David Humphreys is looking for that confidence to carry over into this year as the program tries to build on last year’s success.
Humphreys, who took over just prior to the start of last season, said he was proud of how his team steadily improved from beginning to end in 2021 and will look to follow that same script with a few new faces this fall.
“When I took over right before the season, we started slow trying to teach them how we wanted to play, and the great thing is the kids were very mature and really bought into that teaching,” said Humphreys, a veteran high school coach in northwest Georgia. “Each week we saw progression in knowledge of the game. Early in the year we got hammered some and faced some adversity, but the kids really bought in and became resilient. And we became a very physical football team by the end of the year. I hope that’s what our calling card is going to be this year. A lot of teams in eight-man football don’t really play that way, but that is what we want our identity to be on both sides of the ball. I’m very proud of the way the guys competed last year. They played hard and saw their hard work pay off. We lost some pretty impactful players from that team last year, but we are returning
some kids that know what it takes and we have some new guys that will step up.”
The Lions should be a bit ahead of where they were as far as familiarity with what is expected from the coaching staff as they went through two weeks of spring practice back in May and followed that up with their first summer conditioning program in several years.
“I was really shocked at how well we did in the spring,” said Humphreys. “We got a chance to scrimmage, and I was surprised at how well we competed. That catapulted us into the summer. We got some good work done. You know it’s never as good as you want it to be, but to just be starting it back, hopefully we set the groundwork for our summer program to become bigger and better every year. We had our Iron Lion competition at the
end of the summer and gave out three awards, which are the two team captains and Iron Lion. We want that to become really important to the kids and something they look forward to every year.”
Offensively, the Lions will be replacing last year’s starting quarterback and running back as both John Nance and Bailey Mohler were lost to graduation. Evan Whiteside is expected to move into the quarterback role, and
Humphreys expects him to gain experience and improve as the season progresses. Cooper Giddens and Price Dyer will provide Whiteside some veteran skill players to rely on with Giddens at receiver and Dyer at tight end, and Humphreys said there is strong potential among the offensive line group also.
“Our line is young, but they are going to be okay with more reps,” said Humphreys. “Losing John at quarterback
and Evan taking over that spot, it will take him some time to get comfortable. He probably didn’t play more than 11 or 12 plays last year because John really never came off the field so he’s going to have to go through a lot of firsts a quarterback… his first interception, his first touchdown, his first game, his first everything. You can see him as I’m talking to him at practice taking it all in and learning. That being said, we can’t overwhelm him from the start. With losing Bailey to graduation at running back, our identity will be different at that spot. We’ll have to create our identity over the first few weeks of the season on that side of the ball. We do have some guys at receiver that will be able to stretch the field so we will be able to rely on that and throw the ball deep a little more.”
As far as the defensive side of the ball, Humphreys said he expects this year’s group to be as good if not better than the 2021 defense. Avery Alford is a leader as a senior linebacker, Dyer will play outside linebacker, Elliott Whiteside and Ben Rooke should contribute plays on the defensive line and Giddens and multiple other speedsters will help in the defensive backfield.
“Defensively we feel a lot better going into this season than we did last season just from a coaching standpoint,” said Humphreys. “We are getting a better feel for defensive schemes and personnel, and I think this defense can be better than last year. We’ve got two or three linebackers back, four defensive linemen that can do different things with one
that is quick and one that has some size and can play on the nose. We could be a really physical, intimidating defense. You know if they aren’t scoring, then they can’t beat you. We need our defense to lead the way and allow our offense to mature.”
The Lions open the season on Aug. 19 at home against Young Americans Christian at Grizzard Park and will have some time to work out some of the issues with youth as they won’t play a region game until early October.
Humphreys said he is looking for some of the questions to be answered over the first month or so of the season, including seeing his team grow up in a hurry.
“We are always concerned with special teams because you really never know what to expect there, but the next thing we have to do is lean on our defense to be very stingy,” said Humphreys. “We’ve got to allow the offense time to grow. As our quarterback grows so will our offense. We just have to make sure we aren’t asking too much from them early in the season.”