I heard that Steve hired a new coach. So I started watching film and not too long after that he came in and introduced himself. His name is Tony Wells. Once we got to talking, I could already tell that he was going to be a good coach. The one big thing that he had was some Arena and indoor experience. He has played in the Arena league for about 8 years and then coached in the Arena leagues. At the start of this season he was coaching for the Miami Morays who are also in our NIFL. (That just happens to be the same franchise that H.P. is also involved with.) He left the Miami team because he felt it wasn't right and something else was going to open up.
He said he has already watched part of the Fayetteville game film and saw a team that didn't put a lot of effort out on the film. He also said that it took a lot of guts and courage to go through what we did and still make the trip to Fayetteville. He said this team has courage and wants to learn and get better. That was not the case about the team in Miami.
I was the first player that got to talk to Coach Wells and told him where I thought we needed to get better. I told him that we needed to be motivated because it has been a while since we have really gotten fired up for a game. We lost direction when the H.P. stuff started to shake down around Week 6. I think our team plays really well when we are motivated and we have reason and direction. Coach Wells is the perfect person to come in turn this team around.
Coach Biles and the old coaching staff were doing so much damage control before Steve got here that there was no room to coach or teach. I could tell that he was really excited to get a hold of our team, because he saw a great potential in us and we had a lot of talent we just needed direction, leadership, and motivation.
I spent all day in the offices on Wednesday going over Coach Wells' offense and our old offense. I was incorporating his offense into ours for this week. Then hopefully for the next week we would be able to use his system entirely. Wednesday's practice was just a team meeting with Coach Wells to get familiar with him and his philosophies. The team spirits were high because we could tell that he cared and wanted this team to succeed. He wasn't just here to finish the season, he made it clear that we had more talent than any team in this league and he wanted to win the championship this year.
On Thursday, we got our equipment back and we were like kids on Christmas morning. I had already been in the office all day coming up with a gameplan with Coach Wells. The practice that Thursday was the most intense practice we had since training camp. Coach Wells taught the entire practice. Our guys had a sense of urgency on their faces and they wanted to learn. I knew our team was in good shape.
On Friday we put the finishing touches on our gameplan. We only had about 18 plays total in for the game. We were just going to keep in simple and put the ball in our best guys' hands.
Coach Wells also switch some guys' positions because they were playing in the wrong spot. Tim Daniels moved to linebacker, he was playing defensive line. That was the biggest change for us; some other guys moved positions but are also playing in their old spots too.
Our confidence was high but we were playing a red hot Rome Renegades. Could our offense get it done with only 18 plays in the gameplan? Find out here.