DALTON, Ga. – Football scrimmages are for fine-tuning, the time for coaches to settle the depth chart and see who’s ready for live competition.
For first-year Dalton High School head coach Matt Land, Thursday’s scrimmage with rival Northwest Whitfield was a bit more than that. Like many of his players donning the familiar red and white, Land was getting his first taste of trial by fire. The former Catamount player and assistant coach found being the one in charge is quite different.
“The thing I think that sneaks up on you is that you don’t get to coach as much during the game as you do as a position coach,” he said following the scrimmage, which saw the varsities play to a 7-7 tie in their half of going head to head. “I found myself at times wanting to holler out there. I don’t want to coach over my coaches. It’s important to me that they know they can trust me. It’s tough to fight that urge to coach, though. That caught me by surprise.”
Northwest coach Mike Falleur remembers feeling the same thing some 20 years ago.
“You think you’re ready for all the things that can happen and then you realize that, hey, this is a whole lot different,” Falleur said. “That’s why I’ve got good people around me, and so does Matt, and he’ll let them do their jobs. Matt Land is going to do a great job. Dalton has a great football program and obviously they’re going to be fine.”