Russell County focusing on changing culture one day at a time

When Dwight Jones made the decision to leave Harris County for Russell County, where he began his head coaching career in 1990, he said it felt like an opportunity to finish what he started years ago.

He wants to be able to change the culture of a program that hasn’t had any success to speak of over the past two seasons. The Warriors have lost 22 straight games dating back to the 2013 regular season.

Things are improving, without a doubt, Jones said. But there’s still a long way to go to get to where he wants them to be.

“I think we’ve got a long way to go still,” Jones said. “Just getting to be able to have a complete practice. We do well for maybe two or three sections of practice, but don’t finish the whole drill. That’s what we’ve got to be able to do.”

Offense

The offense is one of the main sticking points right now, Jones said. While the defense is always expected to be ahead of the offense early, the difference has been a little more pronounced than he’d like so far.

With that said, there are some things he likes. The offensive line is improving and quarterback Keshawn Stevenson has shown an ability to run the offense.

There are a handful of players, about six, who play both ways, and Jones said they’ve handled their duties well.

The biggest challenge is to get all 11 guys on the field understanding what their role is and executing it on a play-to-play basis.

“What we do is that all 11 guys have to do it together,” Jones said. “We’re not a spread team that can beat you one-on-one or let the quarterback run like we were able to do with TaQuon (Marshall, at Harris County). Now you’ve got to make some plays all together.”

Defense

Last year, the defense set a record for points allowed in a season with 551, including 82 allowed to Beauregard, an individual game record, in the final game of the season.

Jones doesn’t think that’s going to happen again this year.

While that unit, too, has a ways to go, he said there are a number of capable players who have come together and shown a lot of improvement over the summer and early parts of fall practice.

Defensive linemen Damon Lloyd, Antrevion and Andevion Mitchell, and Simeon Hill have all had some success, as have linebacker Dennis Brown and defensive back Quaze’yis Perry.

“Those guys have all bought into what Coach (Clinton) Britton and those guys are doing on the defensive side,” Jones said.

Overall

Jones said the motto for this team is 48 minutes. That’s how many minutes he wants to play every game and he’s stressing a much larger effort in practice to prepare them for that.

“It’s about pushing yourself every day to do the small things so you can have a chance to get the big things,” he said.

The big thing might not be a region championship this year. It might just be a couple of wins. But, one step at a time, the team is improving.

“We’re trying to get there, and we’re getting better,” Jones said. “But we still have a ways to go.”

This story was originally published August 10, 2016 at 2:03 PM with the headline "Russell County focusing on changing culture one day at a time."