Two weeks ago, I got a chance to sit down and interview Coach Q and talk all about the current football team; and what their plans are for this football season:

So let’s just start. Like, what are your feelings on the football season?

Q: You know, we have really high hopes for football season this year or for a football team this year. You know, this is my sixth year as head coach, and I think this is the best team that I’ve had as a head coach. We think this could be our first winning season since 2014. This was the first time we won our home opener since 2016. So things are obviously trending in the right direction. The main reason why we feel like this is because we have 29 seniors. So we returned seven starters on offense and seven on defense.

Nice.

Q: And six out of those seven have been starting since their sophomore year. So guys like Lucas Silva, a year starter entering this year. Adrian Vega, Jahiem Daniel, Jonathan Angione, Emerald Charles, Nick Pennington, you know, Pablo Jasier, these are all guys that have been starting for two years. So we’re just, like, loaded with experience and talent. Talent to go along with that. Yes, we’ve high hopes. We think we can make the playoffs.

Speaking on the leadership, how do you think being seniors has impacted their role on the team?

Q: Well, one of the things that we preach is that regardless let me rephrase that. One of the things I say to the seniors is that being a senior, you’re a leader no matter what. You’re either a good leader or a bad leader, but you’re naturally you’re going to be a leader because those younger guys are going to look up to you. So, like I said, I have 29 seniors, and I expect to have 29 leaders, at least in that class. Whether you’re a two-way starter or you’re just somebody helping out on the sidelines for whatever it is, the way you conduct yourself, there’s sincerely not a single senior on our team that I think is one of those bad leaders. And that’s another reason why our hopes are so high for this season.

What’s some of your strategy on the field that you’re willing to share?

Q: Yeah, well, we have a ton of speed. The fastest kids on the team, who are also the fastest kids on the track team, are on the football team. So we plan to utilize that speed in any way, shape, or form that we can. We’re super aggressive, and once again, when you have speed match with aggression, that’s great. We plan on flying all around, all over the place. I think we just are holding each other accountable.

It’s not just coaches that are holding the kids accountable, but you will see seniors step up in practice, and if there’s something that, whether it’s another senior or a sophomore, is doing something that doesn’t go along with our winning culture, they hold each other accountable.

We do something called culture runs, where if we have a kid who we have these lists of ten things that we say, like build culture and championship teams, being coachable, not disrespecting each other, not trashing the coaches, not whining 100% effort, so on and so forth, there’s ten of those. And anytime a kid breaks one of those rules. Let’s say a kid gave me an excuse he wasn’t running. I was like, Why didn’t you do this? He’s like, oh, I don’t know, Coach. I’m tired. Everyone says, “culture run”, and it’s not like this hard thing they do. They just have to run to the other side of the field and back. But it gives them time to reflect on, okay, why am I running? Sort of thing. So I just think, along with the original question, was there anything I’m willing to share? We’re holding each other accountable, trying to build a culture, and we’re going to be fast and try to utilize our speed against teams that we feel like we’re going to be faster than every team.

Thank you, Any final thoughts?

Q: Listen, last year we had a lot of excitement in the school. There was a great turnout with the fans. That’s something that the boys definitely notice, that the coaches notice. We always appreciate everyone’s love and support for the team.

Thank you Coach Q, I hope everyone comes out to all the McMahon Home Games