Wendell Early, new Heritage High School football head coach, is bringing an uptempo college-style offense to Heritage. In this Q&A he speaks on his style of play, playing Rockdale in the first game and more.

The Rockdale News: Alright coach, I know this is your first year. Going into it, now that you've had a chance to see your kids in pads, how do you think you guys can do?

Wendell Early: Well, I think we can do just as well as we wanna do to be honest with you. We've got a terrific group of young men - they are a fantastic group of seniors. They've done a great job learning the new offense, learning a new defense and learning a new way of doing things. We do things a little differently than they've been done. We're very up-tempo both in terms of our playing style and our practice.

RN: I know your first game of the season, first official game, is against Rockdale and that's that rivalry matchup -

Early: Rockdale?...Rockdale?....Rockdale? Yeah they're that school across the street (he said jokingly).
RN: That's that rivalry matchup -

Early: It is. it's huge. I've heard it's very big and I'm excited about it. What we do is, we don't talk about much of anything about the next one. We always deal with the one that's coming...

RN: I know you said your style was uptempo, so tell me a little bit about that. What kind of football are you guys gonna have offensively? Uptempo? Smashmouth football? Option?

Early: We run the spread attack. We're kind of a cross between an Auburn-style and Oregon-style offense. We don't really use the big cards, I wish we did, but I just don't know what they do (he laughed). If we could figure something out to do with the cards we'd do that cause that looks like fun. What we try to do is have fun and play fast and get a lot of touches on the football. We try to get the ball in our skill players' hands and get ‘em in the grass where they can do that thing that you don't coach. We've got several guys that can do things that you - I just try not to get in their way and try not to mess them up. Right now Anthony Stanley is our starting quarterback and he can fly. He runs the option like nobody's business. Really excited about that. Upfront we're a little smallish, but the kids work hard and they're tough. They process things pretty quickly. In this offense we're calling signals - boom, boom, boom - and we're snapping the football. So they have to process things pretty quickly, and they've done a good job getting used to that. They've never done that before. So they've done a good job with that. Defensively, we're a 4-3 football team. Very, very, very base. Very, very, very fundamental-oriented type football team. We're gonna hit and read and run to the football. We've got a tremendous trio of linebackers. Probably three of the best I've ever been around on the team at one time. We've got a tremendous group of kids and I'm excited about that.

RN: What are your goals for this season?

Early: Our goal is to go 1-0. Honestly, we don't talk much about down the road. We really dwell on the job at hand, and our goal right now is to go 1-0. If we have goals, our No. 1 goal would be to know what to do, know our assignments. Then our second goal would be don't be out-physical, don't be out-hit. Our third goal is to not be out-conditioned. We're going to be strong in the fourth quarter. Win, lose or draw, we're gonna be running in the fourth quarter. Our last primary goal is to have a chance to win in the fourth quarter. Keep it close, tough ball games, we've got some very, very tough opponents. Keep it close first quarter, have a chance to win it in the fourth quarter.