UPDATED: Peabody names new head football coach
It didn't take long for Peabody principal and athletic director Tim Haney to figure out who he wanted his next head football coach to be.
A day after former head coach Ricky Woods turned in his resignation to return to Mississippi to coach, Haney announced the promotion of Shane Jacobs to be the new leader of the Golden Tide.
"Our football team has won 30-plus games in the past three years," Haney said Friday morning. "It's not a stretch to think there's some great assistants on that staff, because I assure you coaching a football team isn't a one-man show.
"Shane Jacobs has earned his shot because of the work he's put in and the success he's helped this team to, and I think he'll do a good job."
Jacobs has been the defensive coordinator for the program the past three years under Woods and his predecessor Joe Gaddis in 2012.
"I've never been one that had aspirations of being a head coach or anything like that," Jacobs said. "When I coached freshmen at North Side and then gained more responsibilities there and then when I came here, I've just always been focused on the job I needed to do at that time.
"That's my focus now. My job is to help these guys be as successful as they can be, and that's what I'll try to do as the head coach and expect everybody else on the staff to do so as well."
Before he moved to Trenton, Jacobs was on Tab Vowell's staff at North Side and was a part of the crew who led the Indians to their undefeated season in 2010.
Woods credited Jacobs for helping the Golden Tide go on the playoff run that led them to the state championship last year by relating to the players well and having a say in necessary adjustments – in-game and weekly – to give the Tide the best chance to win the team could have.
Haney agreed with Woods' assessment.
"Just look at the playoffs last year," Haney said. "You don't coordinate a defense to stop Huntingdon then stop Trinity [Christian Academy] the next week the same way.
"He had to get a whole new defensive game plan ready to go within 24 hours – or less probably – after overcoming the previous team. Huntingdon is very different from TCA, who is very different from McKenzie, Adamsville and Marion County."
Jacobs inherits a team that returns a lot of key players returning from the championship team including the backfield with quarterback Kendrick Malone and running back Jordan Johnson, and the team should be able to compete for the Class 1A championship in the new TSSAA football realignment as long as they figure out how to replace key losses on the line and in the secondary.
"Those kids won that state championship last year," Jacobs said. "I told somebody the other day that it was our jobs as coaches to put them in best position to win that title and not mess it up.
"Coach Woods and I have the same philosophy that we're not going to outsmart anybody, and we're not going to try to. You just depend on your players and their strengths to see how well they perform when it's time to and not mess it up yourself."