bigdaddy25

The Richland program isn't dead yet. They have had several years of neglect at the middle school level. These seniors have had 4 different head coaches in as many years and they didn't get coached very well as middle school players. I personally think that given a few years with the current head coach, they can make a change from the 6th grade up. If the administration and assistant coaches will get on board with the "program" mentality, they can build the football program back to its competitve level of years ago. The players will need to come through the ranks by learning the "same" offense and defense all the way through the program. The last team to go to the 2nd round of the playoffs and were one play away from the 3rd round had that type of experience and they were very successful. Comparing the Richland program to Giles County's isn't a very fair comparison. There are very different types of athletes at these two schools with a very uncomparible feeder program. Even with the exodus of players to Giles County, the remaining players are still working very hard as I have seen during the practices that I have attended. I'll admit that they need more athletes from the hallways to play football, however, getting that type of committment from today's youth will be very hard. If Richland was wiining games year in and year out, there would be more kids willing to participate, but having to start at the "bottom" and commit to making the program better with hard work and not "immediate" positive results will be a very big obstacle to overcome. I think the community is behind the program and wants to help with the challenge, but, it will take a tremendous effort from everyone to see this task through. Maybe former players could assist in the effort rather than wishing the "death" of the program as a whole. Combining the programs in the county would only hurt the Richland kids because only a handful of kids would actually get to participate. The remaining kids would miss out on the experiences involved in football, not only on the field, but off the field as well.