South Pointe football looks to improve offensive efficiency in spring practices
South Pointe head football coach Bobby Collins wasn’t pleased with the way his team played last season.
The Stallions’ 8-4 record “isn’t going to do it” for Collins as he enters his third season at the helm.
South Pointe averaged 27.3 points per game last year, but Collins feels like his offense can do better.
“We’ve got to get more efficient on offense,” Collins said. “We want to be able to build on a rhythm for the next three months, so that once we get to training camp in August, we’re not working backwards. We want to make sure everybody knows what to do, how to do it, and we just want to be doing it fast.”
A key component for South Pointe’s offense is Mason Picket-Hicks.
The 5-foot-8 running back led the Stallions with 1,345 all-purpose yards to go with eight touchdowns.
Heading into his senior year, he’s ready to step into a larger role
“I experienced being a leader (last year),” Picket-Hicks said. “It kept the team looking to me to make plays, and I just did it. (This year), I’m still a leader, showing the other backs what to do.”
Two-year starting quarterback Malachi Marshall is graduating, and South Pointe has found his successor in former Fairfield Central quarterback Cameron McMillon.
McMillon, a junior, was a two-year starter at Fairfield Central, passing for 5,714 yards and 55 touchdowns.
Collins is impressed by what McMillon has shown so far in the spring.
“(Cameron is) coming off two successful seasons at Fairfield Central,” Collins said. “We just got to get him acclimated to what we do and how we do things at South Pointe, but other than that, he’s been progressing well.”
Collins said his defensive backfield is going to be stout, with junior Fred Reese returning from a 116-tackle season and four-star sophomore J’Zavien Currence finishing the year with a team-leading five interceptions.
However, Collins still wants to see his defense be more opportunistic, reminiscent to how South Pointe used to play.
“We got to create more turnovers on the defensive side of the ball,” Collins said. “That’s our biggest goal. To create more turnovers and we want to be able to score more on defense. I went against South Pointe for five years (as the head coach of Lancaster) before I took this job, and back then, if the ball was in the air for three seconds, we knew those guys were coming down with it, and they were going the other way.”
Reese said that spring practice is going to help the team build chemistry.
“We just have to do the right stuff in the offseason,” Reese said. “Then, when it comes to the season, we’ll just put everything together. From there, we just have to go out and get the win.”
South Pointe starts its season at home against Spartanburg on August 23.
