Training Camp Tour Day 3: Briar Woods Falcons
BRAMBLETON, VA - On the opening day of training camp, it was quite apparent the Briar Woods Falcons are not messing around this year. Under no circumstance was there to be any walking, talking, or slacking, at least not on head coach Charlie Pierce's watch. Discipline was the key word of the day, and the coaching staff was there to enforce every bit of the definition.
Yet when considering how the Falcons will be entering their first year in the Dulles district, such a disciplined approach may not be too surprising. This is the real deal for Briar Woods, and after talking to one coach, the whole school community is fired up for this season.
So for the first couple days of camp, the Falcon's sole focus is on the offensive side of the ball. That makes offensive coordinator John Tomlinson a busy man for now, but he knows it is just the beginning process in order to build up a successful team.
"It all looks good until you put somebody in front of them," said Tomlinson. "So the bottom line for us is that we may not be bigger than most people but we just have to execute."
And the one looked upon to execute and make big plays is quarterback Alex Munro. A senior this year, Munro came into the first day of camp standing out as the obvious top player on this team. Quick and agile, Munro looks ready to take over the offense and become a big time player in this district. He displayed a sense of confidence the first day, and that has the coaching staff excited about their quarterback in the early going.
"I'm happy with [Munro]," said Tomlinson. "It's the first day, so we don't set the expectations too high. The focus is to get the young kids up a little bit, but at the same time, making sure the older quarterbacks are still doing the things they need to do. So I'm happy so far with him."
Munro could make his offensive coach even happier as the season wears on if he can successfully lead the Falcons to victory. So to get the ball in the hands of their star quarterback as much as possible, Briar Woods will be running more of a spread offense along with a lot of four wide receiver looks.
"We just have a lot of athletes," said Tomlinson. "Our line is young, so it's just more of a choice to go to a four wide receiver look, because we have four exceptional wide receivers."
As Tomlinson alluded to earlier though, it's tough to rush to any type of judgment on his offense so far until they line up against any type of opposition. But to get a sneak peak of what's to come, Briar Woods has several tough scrimmages lined up against the bigger schools of St. Pauls (MIAA-A Baltimore), Washington-Lee (AAA), and Frederick (4A Maryland).
"We like to play up because it helps us. A lot of people have this philosophy that we hold stuff back, but we're going to run what we run and not think about all that other stuff. When we prepare for our opponents, we just prepare for what they do."
Yet put aside preparation and the scrimmages for now. Tomlinson--just like Pierce--wants his offense run in a complete disciplined manner. That takes priority over anything at this point in the season.
"Without the discipline, it would be chaos," explained Tomlinson. "Everything has to start with discipline. When they come out on this field and warm-up, they get a lot of that work out of the way before practice, so when they step out on the field, they get right into it."
Disciplined or hooligans, there is a lot of excitement brewing out in Brambleton as their next step as a football program is set to begin on August 24th at Hedgesville (WV).
