Heritage football coach Wendell Early has been with the Patriots for about four months now, and when you watch the team practice you can see how Early's identity is written into their DNA.

While practicing, the Patriots have a clock that is running continuously to keep the pace and get the team used to Early's uptempo style of play. The team goes from drill to drill and they move fast.

"I don't stop the clock. I don't have the right to stop the clock," Early said.

Early plans to run a form of the spread-option on offense. However, the man that lines up behind the center to run that offense could be in question.

According to Early, there is no QB competition because he plans to have a varied offense that does a lot of different things. It's possible fans could see two players split time at the position. David Turner, a senior transfer who just got in a couple weeks ago from South Carolina is the only senior quarterback on the team. Anthony Stanley is the incumbent starter.
Early says that Turner can flat-out throw the ball and Stanley is special to watch when it comes to running the option.

Early says he plans to play fast, and one of his goals for the team is to always be conditioned.

"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 going to be running in the fourth quarter," Early said.

Early is not only the head coach, but he's also a position coach running the scout team.

"I love to do that because it gives the other kids a good look," Early said. "I'll run the scout defense against our offense and I'll run the scout offense against our defense. That ensures that those guys work hard. If the head coach is over doing something else, they're kind of wallowing around giving some other assistant coach a hard time. I don't let them do that.
We get over there and we get after it."

Early calls himself old-school, and it shows. The team is in for a surprise if they plan on wearing anything extra in addition to their uniforms on Friday nights.

"You should have seen them in the spring game," Early said. "Man we had every color in the rainbow, tights, one sleeve, towels and facemasks. I said, ‘Listen guys, enjoy it.' They said, ‘What do you mean, coach?' I said, ‘You ain't never gonna wear that on Friday night.'"

Early wants his players to distinguish themselves by the way they play not the way they look.

The Patriots will scrimmage against Brooklet High School on Tuesday.