BY IVAN SANDERS

STAR STAFF

ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com

Just like most high school football teams in the area, the Happy Valley Warriors have seen enough of the same colored jerseys and are ready to get under the Friday Night Lights and see how their season shakes out.

“We have been busy getting ready and Monday was our first day out in pads,” said Warrior head coach Jason Jarrett. “We started back after the dead period ended and we feel like that we have gotten a lot accomplished.

“The schemes we want to use have been installed and not it’s just a matter of perfecting it.”

One area in particular that Jarrett and his coaching staff have been working on is the depth chart as the Warriors will be relying on several underclassmen in the upcoming season.

“We have been working on the depth issue just trying to get the guys caught up,” Jarrett said. “We have six seniors that have played for us and the rest of our crew is underclassmen.

“We feel confident in the kids that we have.”

The Warriors had a productive 7-on-7 season getting their skill players some reps but Jarrett would be the first to admit that things change when the season starts.

“We realize that the 7-on-7 is not real and when the bullets start flying it changes everything,” Jarrett added. “We feel confident in our skill players and got some good quality snaps during the 7-on-7 on both sides of the football.

“It was good for our guys to go against another color of jersey to get the competitive juices flowing and helped to overcome some adversity. We were very blessed.”

One thing that many fans will see right off the bat is the addition of a couple of coaches that will be familiar to Warrior Hill as Steve ‘Pink’ McKinney has taken over as the offensive coordinator and former head basketball coach Chuck Babb will now walk the gridiron sidelines as well.

McKinney recently retired from teaching at Unaka High School and Jarrett said the addition was a much-needed one for himself.

“I called the offense the first three seasons I was here and with me having to oversee all of the football program plus having kids at home it would just take some of the stress off of me,” Jarrett stated.

“With Coach (Todd) Caldwell taking over the baseball program, I was glad that Pink was waiting in the wings. I worked with him for two years when Coach Verran was here and he just does a tremendous job. We have a great offensive staff.

“Chuck Babb picked right up and took off running,” Jarrett added. “I have always said if you coached one sport, you could coach another one.

“He is a great man to have around our young men.”

Jarrett went on to say that his nine-man coaching staff is a team that relies on each other as everyone wears a headset and can put in input on any side of the football which makes his coaching staff so unique.