May 2005
By: Brian Vaughn   
   The Greenwood Bulldogs finally got to put the pads on in 2005. The Bulldogs enjoyed their two weeks of spring football practice, with five days in pads as mandated by the Arkansas Activities Association.
   Greenwood had 85 players take part in the spring practices. The Bulldogs spent a good deal of time just breaking in the new players.
    "We're breaking in a lot of new guys," said Bulldog head coach Rick Jones. "It just seemed like we had a ton of dropped balls, ton of missed blocks, a lot of missed tackles."
   Jones isn't just  looking for football players for this years team, but also team leaders in the seniors of 2005.
   "The number one thing we lost from last year is leadership," said Jones.     
   "The second thing we lost was play makers. Guys that made big plays on third down they made key stops, key tackles, key interceptions, key pass breakups, or offensively on key downs,  that 4th and 1 and a half against Wynne in finals to keep the drive alive. We threw that to a guy that's not here anymore. When we threw the ball into the end zone to go ahead we threw that to a guy that's not here anymore."
   Coach Jones uses the spring practice time to try and find the next batch of play-makers.
   "We broke the squad up evenly from day one so we could practice a lot of kids. Like today we practiced 44 kids pretty thoroughly, instead of just working with 15, 20 or 30 guys. We wanted to work with as many guys as we could so we just split the squad into white and blue."
   Senior quarterback Daniel Stegall was sidelined for the spring practices after suffering a broke left hand while playing summer baseball.
   With Stegall sidelined Coach Jones went with his freshman quarterbacks to lead the Bulldog offense during the spring.
   "Stegall didn't take a competitive snap during the spring, because of his broken hand," said Jones.
   "Every single snap this spring was taken by a freshman quarterback. In a way that's really awesome, because I thought they did a great job. We put the pressure on them, we blitz, we extend on defense. Tyler, Matt and Thomas, I thought did an outstanding job of picking up all that stuff."
   The Bulldogs will continue getting ready during the summer with their FASDOGS conditioning program and 7 on 7 passing games.
   Greenwood opens the 2005 season at Shiloh Christian in Springdale at Champion Stadium on September 2nd.

"Every single snap this spring was taken by a freshman quarterback. In a way that's really awesome, because I thought
they did a great job." 
                              Rick Jones

Freshman Tyler Wilson

Daniel Stegall

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