CRESTVIEW — Crestview High School's freshman football players are learning to stay cool under pressure.
It's not necessarily pressure from facing other teams; just pressure from the differences between middle school and high school football.
“At first it was kind of scary,” Tatum Taylor said. His fears subsided, he said, when he noticed he is “not as small as the other kids.”
A number of this year's players passed the pigskin at Shoal River or Davidson middle schools, which meant they needed some adjusting.
Keon Voisin said transitioning from being a Davidson Panther to a Crestview Bulldog "was kind of difficult. The reps are easy, but the plays are kind of hard."
Meanwhile, former Panther Milton Bouchard said, "At first I didn't know the plays like I thought I was going to know them, but now I know them like, easy."
Now, Milton has set a goal: "to be the best player I can be; work as a team player," he said.
Rodderick Skinner said he wants the Bulldogs to be "the (best) freshman team this year" and become state champions. "Preparing as a team, doing the right things, and keeping that goal to work on" are the keys to achieving it, he said.
Rod Bouchard said it all comes down to one thing: "Execute."
CHS athletic director and head football coach Tim Hatten said he likes what he sees from the freshmen.
“I think our ninth-grade team is coming out of the gate better than our ninth-grade team that finished last year,” Hatten said. “We like the progress we are making.”
Almost 70 of 183 players in the CHS Bulldog program are junior varsity players, Hatten said.
Hatten credits Crestview middle schools for training the new players well.
“If we get those kids from those two schools, we will be a very competitive program, year in and year out,” Hatten said. “There is no reason we can’t be.”
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Matthew Brown, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Coach: Freshman Bulldog team shows more promise than last year's ninth-graders