Creek Wood set to begin new, youthful chapter

Creek Wood’s football program is set to begin a new chapter. Again.

The Red Hawks are now on their third coach in as many years, but there’s a lot of optimism about their newest head man.

Houston Thiel has taken over the program after coming from just up the road at Charlotte Middle. Although him and his staff might be one of the youngest in the state, he thinks they more than make up for it in experience and relatability to the players.

“I think that, even though the staff is young in age, there’s a lot of experience,” said Thiel.

“It helps us more than it hurts us. It’s been easier for our assistant coaches to build relationships with the position guys. With it not being a huge age difference, I feel like we’ve made a lot of connections.”

Thiel is a Creek Wood alum himself, so coming out to Red Hawk Stadium on Friday night will not be a foreign experience. He is, however, emotionally preparing himself for that first game when he leads his team out against Dickson County Aug. 18.

“I’ve already prepared myself for that first ball game,” said Thiel.

“A coach did once tell me, ‘you only get one first game. You need to take it all in.’ I’m going to try to do that and not get caught up in the moment.”

After taking the job in the spring, Thiel went straight to work with his guys. He’s been instilling new systems on both sides of the ball. The team seems to be picking it up well.

“The biggest thing I’m excited about is how well the guys are grasping the new systems,” said Thiel.

“We’re running a new defense, a new offensive system. We’re still installing things, but the kids are picking it up and retaining what we’re telling them.”

Similar to last year, Creek Wood’s bread and butter offensively will be the ground game. All-Region running back Quinton Poole is gone, but there’s more than enough players to pick up where Poole left off. Poole’s backup, Daniel Davila, will help take part in a running-back-by-committee system that will see Kobe Mayberry, Sam Askins, Mitch Duke, and a few others try to run the ball.

“I’m hoping, with the offensive system that we’re instilling, that we’ll be able to control the football. If you watched a lot of Creek Wood games last year, they didn’t have problems scoring, but sometimes had problems stopping other teams. I think part of that falls on the offense and being able to slow the game down,” said Thiel.

Creek Wood will see some new faces this year because of the region alignment. Several of the teams who are now in Region 5-4A went under .500 last year, which might leave the window open for the Red Hawks to compete for the crown.

“The region alignment really helped us out,” said Thiel.

“I think Springfield is going to be a top contender, and everybody is going to be battling them for the region championship. I do feel that we can compete with everybody in that region.”

As the season approaches, Thiel emphasized that the most important he can do for his team is prepare them week-in and week-out, and that the rest will take care of itself when the Red Hawks take the field.

“We preach to our guys preparation,” said Thiel.

“I think that if we prepare, we’re going to succeed. That’s our job as coaches, to make sure they’re ready.”

Reach Andy Simmons by email jasimmons@gannett.com or on Twitter @Andy DHTN