HERRIN (WSIL) -- Herrin Football is on pause due to COVID-19 but before the stoppage we were able to meet up with their new Head Coach Taylor Perry.
Lets go Beyond the Highlights with the new man in charge of the Tigers.
"Ultimately X's and O's are great, they are fun, for a coach it's fun to chalk stuff up but the kids really don't care how much you really know," Perry said. "It's about how much they know and about how much their coaches care about them."
Taylor Perry is in his first year as a head coach and understands he needs a buy in from his players to be successful.
"We're doing a lot of bonding and culture stuff and it's been an easy transition, I've known these kids since they were young so it's not like a new guy coming in, we have that trust so it's been a pretty smooth transition so far."
Coach Perry doesn't have much experience but he learned under Coach Rod Sherrill and he's ready to take the reigns.
"Coach Sherrill did a good job of, and it wasn't just myself, there was a few of us young coaches that he did a great job of grooming us and he told me that day one that as soon as you feel you're ready just let me know and I'll step down and let you take the reigns but I'll still be there to help you out."
Coach Sherrill is sticking around. He'll coach the offensive line.
"It all starts up front, he's got the most wisdom on the staff right now so that was the natural place for him. He's worked with O-Line before for twenty plus years so he was the guy."
In the spring, Herrin started 3-0, dealt with a covid-19 outbreak within the team, lost their last two games to go 3-2 on the spring season.Right now the focus is about building a culture and being a better version of Herrin football.
"I expect to compete but I'm not putting out any expectations out right now. As a staff and as players we are learning to control what we can control. We can't control what Marion does, what Benton does, we are focused on Herrin right now, keeping things simple and worrying about getting better each and every day."
Coach Perry has seen great intensity from his guys early but there's no rush to implement lots of changes to the playbook.
We're going to take a more balanced approach than we did last year. As much as the kids can handle but what a lot of people have to realize is, this will be the fourth new offense these seniors have ran in their time in high school so we're going to be as simple as we possibly can be and just master the little things, master the fundamentals and if they can grasp it ealry we may add some stuff in mid year but we are going to keep things simple."
The Tigers were a triple option team last season. They struggled to throw it so the opposition loaded up nine guys in the box. The goal is to be more balanced on offense.
As soon as the kids show me they've mastered the base stuff, they canhandle our base stuff, there's a ton of stuff I'd love to do but we're not there yet so it'll depend on what the kids can handle."
