It took a while for the Villa Rica football players to trust everything the new coaching staff was telling them. Can’t blame them, though. Tim Barron’s arrival this year marked the fourth different head coach the Wildcats have head. It’s hard to earn the trust of a teenager who has heard the same song and dance about commitment from a new coach every year.
The belief in the message finally kicked in for real at midseason, ironically after a poor performance in a 24-20 win over Chapel Hill. That’s the night that Barron said all the pieces began to fall into place.
“The kids had been dialed in and we were winning and then we had an off week,” Barron said. “Then we came back the next week and had some distractions that we shouldn’t have had been there that we created on our own. And we didn’t play a real good game. We kind of reverted back to what we were eight or ten weeks earlier.
“And I think that moment is where the guys realized you’ve got to work hard every day, you’ve got to trust the process, you’ve got to trust each other. The players understood the preparation you have Monday through Thursday is going to dictate how you pay on Friday. That was huge for our kids.”
Since then the Wildcats have been focused and successful. Last week Villa Rica (7-2) beat defending Region 6 champion New Manchester in Douglasville to earn the school’s first title since 1998, when the Wildcats were ranked No. and lost in the third round of the playoffs.
Villa Rica has won seven straight after opening the season with two losses and will finish the season this week against Maynard Jackson. The Wildcats are guaranteed to have their most wins since 2011, when Mike Falleur’s team went 6-4. A win this week would be the most for the program since it went 8-3 in 2008 under Rob Cleveland.
“They’re leaning to take ownership and not point fingers at anybody else,” Barron. “It ultimately comes back to the moment of saying that we love them and care about them and they can trust us and, on the opposite end, we’ve learned to trust them.”
The Wildcats have been led by tailbacks Ty McKey, a senior who also starts at safety, and T.J. Harvison, a junior who also plays outside linebacker. Senior Thomas Daniels (6-3, 300) anchors a dependable offensive line and also plays nose guard.
The defense is led by senior linebacker C.J. Lowe, who Barron called “a real student of the game” who helps ensured players are lined up properly.
Villa Rica will open the playoffs next week against the No. 4 team from Region 8. There are as many as six teams that could still claim that spot, so Barron has no idea who their first-round opponent will be.
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