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Smith pleased with first summer at Crossville

By Lew Gilliland
The Times-Journal

Published July 27, 2009

The Crossville High School football team is taking it easy this week.

First-year head coach Bill Smith decided to give his players and assistants some down time after completing team camp at LaFayette, Ga., last week.

Part of the break was already scheduled, but Smith chose to give everyone the full week because he was pleased with how the squad has handled its summer activities.

“Our team has gotten a lot closer this summer, and team camp really culminated our summer work,” said Smith, who a former Alabama player who came to Crossville from Satsuma, where he was offensive coordinator. “We had outstanding attendance in summer workouts. We averaged about 75 kids a day.”

Crossville took part in some 7-on-7 games at camp and also got in some offensive and defensive position work.

The Lions went 2-2 in the 7-on-7s, and the junior varsity picked up a win over LaFayette’s JV.

Crossville closed 2-5 in a camp at Oneonta earlier this month. The Lions lost close games to Lincoln, Hayden and Pinson Valley in pool play. In the double-elimination tournament, Crossville lost to Oneonta, received a forfeit, beat Fairview and lost in overtime to Pinson Valley.

“We’ve shown improvement this summer,” Smith said. “I’m not overly concerned when we lose and I’m not overjoyed when we win 7-on-7s.

Sometimes coaches tend to get away from their normal game plan to try to win 7-on-7s. We don’t run plays we’re not going to run on Friday night. We don’t do anything in our passing game that is not sound as far as pass protection. We may run some empty-back sets on Friday night but not very many.

“On defense we’re going to be about 75 percent zone and about 25 percent man, so we just try to work on our stuff. I like to win in anything I do, but in 7-on-7s we try to work on depth. We’re trying to find more kids to be starters so we don’t have as many two-way players when fall gets here.”

Smith said his team learned an important lesson at Oneonta.

“In all three games [the first day] we had the lead at some point and didn’t finish well,” he said. “We had the lead about midway through [the second day] against Oneonta and let it get away, so I had a talk with our team about playing well to the buzzer. We then played well against Fairview and lost to 6A Pinson Valley in overtime. I was real pleased with the way our kids competed.”

Smith said starting quarterback Nick Davis has steadily improved this summer. The rising junior has not missed a workout and has shown strong leadership while working with the younger players, the coach said.

Smith said he expects big things out of Davis this fall.

The coach bragged on the work of wide receives Brandon Jackson, Zac Gardner, Luis Ramierz and Pierce Jones as well as quarterback/wide receiver Luke Lacey and JV quarterback Will Scott.

Smith has also seen some bright spots on the other side of the ball.

“I feel like our defense has made big strides,” he said. “Our secondary has a chance to be pretty good. I think John Williamson and Jordan Jenkins have showed steady improvement at the corner position. Chris Knight, Johnnie Osborn and Colton Mayes have been steady at linebacker. And Jesse White has done a good job alternating at free safety and outside linebacker.

“Pierce Jones, although he’s a freshman, will be hard to keep off the field. He’ll start either on offense or defense.”

Preseason practice starts Monday. Smith said the Lions would hold two-a-days next week, working from 8 to 10 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. each day.

SWINDALL: Smith met up with an old friend last week in former Russellville and current LaFayette coach Perry Swindall

Smith worked under Swindall at Russellville, serving as quarterback and strength coach. Smith said he runs the same offense Swindall ran at Russellville.

Swindall watched some Crossville practices and shared some comments his former assistant.

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