LAURINBURG — Six days away from his team’s season opener against David W. Butler in Charlotte on Saturday, Scotland football head coach Richard Bailey spoke about his expectations for the Scots this year during a live recording of his radio show on Monday.
In front of a packed house at Jerry’s Deli and Grill on Hasty Road, Bailey said he has a young football team and relatively new coaching staff this season. While those factors presented challenges for the Scots as they worked to develop over the off-season, Bailey is optimistic that the inexperienced players will be able to step up this season and in years to come.
“I’m not saying we aren’t going to be very good,” Bailey said. “We’re definitely at a beginning stage, and hopefully when we get to October and November we’ll be a really good football team again.”
It’s a much different situation than the one the Scots were in last season. With more than 30 seniors on its roster, Scotland went 7-0 in the Sandhills Athletic Conference before losing to Harding 30-22 in the 4A state championship game.
Bailey said he is impressed by the young talent on his team’s varsity and junior varsity teams.
“We’ve got some talented guys in our program,” Bailey said. “Our JV team has some phenomenal young kids on it. The juniors have a huge upside. Some of these sophomores are going to play, and they have some good upside.
“We have a lot of guys that haven’t done anything yet.”
Bailey also discussed what the Scots are doing to prepare for Butler, a team that finished 8-3 last season and made an appearance in the first round of the state playoffs.
Bailey said he expects that Butler will be favored to win the matchup.
“We’re going to have to find a way to manage that, and we will,” Bailey said. “We’re going to do what we need to do to to make it as competitive as we can and find a way to win.”
The Coach Richard Bailey Show is put on by WLNC and will be hosted by Jerry’s every Monday throughout the football season from 7 to 8 p.m.
