After Sebastopol football coach Nick Mooney stepped down to move to Northwest Rankin, it didn’t take the school long to promote Keith Brown as the program’s next head coach.
Brown and the Bobcats just finished up spring drills with an intrasquad scrimmage last week.
“It was important to have a spring this year,” Brown said. “We are trying to install what we are wanting to do in the fall and trying to put all of those things in place. It was really important for us to have that 14-15 days to do that. The kids know me and I know them so it’s been an easy transition. There’s a lot of familiarity there.”
Brown said he thought the Bobcats accomplished a lot this spring.
“I thought we had a great spring,” Brown said. “We needed a good spring. We got three new coaches on the staff. We are putting in a new offense and all the kids bought in. They put in a lot of hard work. The Friday scrimmage was a good showcase for our kids. I thought the kids flew around and most importantly everybody stayed healthy. It was a lot of fun, that’s the main thing.”
Brown said he hired three new coaches including a new offensive coordinator in Tate Thigpen.
“We installed a new offense and had a of learning there,” Brown said. “There are a lot of multiple formations and it’s a RPO style of offense so we spent the spring putting in that new scheme. We have eight to nine potential returning starters on each side of the ball. There’s a lot of experience coming back and they are picking things up pretty fast.”
In addition to Thigpen, Brown also added Trent Hanna to the coach staff along with Taylor Spinks. Hanna comes from Philadelphia after a long stay at Union while Spinks recently graduated from Mississippi State.
“As a whole, we have about 79 years of experience,” Brown said. “I’m really excited about the staff that we have. We have created some excitement and recruited some kids out of the hall. We have 46 kids on the roster and that’s the biggest number we have had in a long time. Everybody has a role and those numbers matter. It creates competition at a lot of spots.”
Brown said the Bobcats will start the summer off on June 1 and go three days a week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
“We will do a 7-on-7 league this summer as well and will do that on Tuesdays in June,” Brown said. “We will split them up in two groups. While one group is lifting, the other will be conditioning. I like the three days a week. It give kids and coaches an extended weekend. I’m really excited and looking forward to the summer. We need to have a really good summer and continue that into the fall.”
