WOODLAWN - New Woodlawn Football Coach Doug Means met with some of his players and their parents for the first time last Friday afternoon as he formally introduced himself and gave them an idea of what to expect as they prepared for the upcoming season.He takes over for Zach Meyer, who resigned from the position after being named the new principal for Woodlawn Elementary.Means left his position as a special teams coordinator/assistant coach for Class 5A Magnolia High School to become head coach for Woodlawn. In addition to serving as an assistant at larger high schools in Arkansas, Florida and Georgia, Means also served as a head coach at Norphlet and Hampton as well as at Port Saint Lucie High School in Florida.With such a depth of experience, Means said he believes it will be an easy transition from coaching 11-man to 8-man.“The good news is the stuff I’ve been doing I’ve been working in spread offenses and different kind of offenses where we ran a lot of multiple fronts,” he said. “When I look at stuff like playbooks and film, especially at Woodlawn here, a lot of that stuff is going to translate real easy over there as long as the kids are willing to learn how to catch the ball and develop that.“ But the run game is going to be simple, easy to do,” he added. “But the passing the game, especially the spread passing game, really works well in 8-man football.”While Means likes a pass-oriented offense, he said he will install the offense that best fits with the players he has.“I want to develop the passing game with like four wides and one quarterback. That’s three linemen down,” he said.“But I also want to get into five linemen, two backs and run the ball out of that with no receivers,” Means added. “We’ll go anywhere from two backs to no backs, and from three linemen to five linemen.Which one we do more is going to matter on how far the kids have come (b...
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