It is rare that T.R. Miller head football coach Jamie Riggs does a bad job when leading his Tiger football team.
Riggs, who is entering his 24th season at T.R. Miller, has compiled a record of 251-54 in Brewton. Overall, Riggs — who is entering his 27th season as a head coach this fall — has a record of 263-73.
But this summer, Riggs graded his job of leading the Tigers as not too good.
“We worked out three days a week this summer,” Riggs said. “Usually when I do a good job, we usually do well in the summer and when I don’t do a good job, we don’t do quiet as well and apparently I didn’t do a good job this year. It has not been one of our better summers. We kind of need to change some things around and get headed in the right direction, as we get ready to get into August and start practice. So we are trying to get a few things done down here at the end.”
While he said things in the Tiger camp this summer have seen better days, Riggs does believe you win games in the off-season.
“I believe a lot of things about football, but I also believe how you handle summer is important,” he said. “You can do too much and you can do too little. I am just not sure what the exact method on that is, but hopefully we will be prepared when we play our first game. I just have not been particularly pleased with our work ethic. I have not been pleased with our attitudes, especially with some of our seniors. So hopefully I will do a better job and if I do a better job, hopefully some of the others will follow.”
Riggs said it his the senior players on the team and the coaching staff that have leadership roles on the team
“Our players, particularly our seniors, are the ones in leadership for us and make everything go,” Riggs said. “But as coaches, we are the ones who set the tone for what is going to happen. So hopefully I will pick things up here in a little bit and we will be better than we have been.”
The 2012 roster for the Tigers shows 70 players in grades nine through 12.
“We have had a little drop off from the amount of kids we had out in the spring to where we are now,” Riggs said. “We are always going to lose a few, so we have lost a handful between spring and now. We have a long time between spring and now, but that is really what your spring and summer workouts are for. They are to find out who is willing to pay the price to be on the team or not.”
Riggs said the goals in the summer for the Tigers is to get stronger and faster, which can be difficult.
“Some of our guys gain strength in the summer because they eat two or three meals a day,” he said. “Where during school, they do not do that. So that is a value to some of our guys I think. For some, they are such crazy schedules in the summer doing things here and there and getting up early or late and your body does not respond to that real well at times. When we approach the season, they will get a little bit of a tighter schedule.”
T.R. Miller will play in a preseason game Friday, Aug. 24 at Flomaton at 7 p.m. But while the game will only be a preseason game, the Tigers will possibly be without starting quarterback Kevin Davis. Davis recently made the 28-man roster for the USA 18-and-under team. In August, Davis will find out if he made the final 20-man team to represent his country at the 18U World Championships in Seoul, South Korea
From the second phase of trials, 20 players will be selected to compete for the 18U National Team at the IBAF Junior AAA/18U World Championships in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 30-Sept. 8. The USA is scheduled to play Australia, Netherlands, Korea, Colombia and Venezuela in World Championship pool play.
“Basically we anticipate Kevin making this national team and I look at this as a great opportunity for him because this does not happen often,” Riggs said. “So we support him in that. As for the rest of the team and the seniors, we talked to them the other day and we support him in that and that is why we have other people in positions behind them.”
Riggs said the Tigers have a quality backup quarterback that he thinks will do a real good job for them in Kieon Smith.
“If Kevin were to hurt his ankle and miss two weeks, we would have had to do this anyway,” Riggs said. “Another thing about this is what a great opportunity to have others to step up and take on this responsibility. Kieon now has to do this and in his other position, it is another opportunity for some other guys to step up to get in there and play early and show that they can play. We look at it like that and we support Kevin and look at it as an opportunity for some of the others to step up. I think he will miss two to three weeks. I think he will miss the preseason game and the first two regular season games.”
As the Tigers head into fall, they are currently in two-a-day camps that began Monday, July 30. The first official practice date set for Monday, Aug. 6. Riggs said he hopes to use the new practice field that was recently completed.
“We are looking forward to practicing on the new field but we are still working on the drainage out there,” he said. “I do anticipate being out there sometime in the month of August. Right now, there are just some drainage issues we are trying to get resolved.”
Here is the rest of the T.R. Miller Tiger football schedule:
• Friday, Aug. 31, Escambia County, Away, 7 p.m.
• Friday, Sept. 7, Opp, Home, 7 p.m.
• Friday, Sept. 14, Excel, Home, 7 p.m. (Legacy Game)
• Friday, Sept. 21, Bayside Academy, Away, 7 p.m.
• Friday, Sept. 28, Clarke County, Away, 7 p.m.
• Friday, Oct. 5, Cottage Hill, Homecoming, 7 p.m.
• Friday, Oct. 12, Southside Selma, Away, 7 p.m.
• Friday, Oct. 19, Straughn, Away, 7 p.m.
• Friday, Oct. 26, W.S. Neal, Home, 7 p.m.
• Friday, Nov. 2, Sweet Water, Home, 7 p.m.