Have not gotten any definitive/concrete news about who the new coaches will be in 2016, but there have been some rumblings over the past week…
New high school football coaches needed at Northern Guilford, Southern Guilford, Smith and High Point Andrews high schools…*****John Patterson, is the new head football coach at High Point Andrews HS….….*****
One call I got earlier this week wanted to know if Earl Bates would be the new coach at Southern Guilford High School…..There are rumblings about Earl Bates being the new football coach at Southern Guilford….
Earl Bates is a graduate of Eastern Guilford High School and he was a very good football player for the EG Wildcats back in his day…Earl is the current coach at Morehead High School in Eden and he led his team to a (10-4) record this past season and took his Panthers to the third round of the NCHSAA 3-A Playoffs…Morehead defeated Western Alamance 28-27 in OT in Round One, then topped Havelock 42-35 in Round Two, before falling to Rocky Mount in Round Three 35-31…All of Morehead’s games were on the road and this was the deepest football playoff run in school history for the Morehead Panthers…Morehead also defeated Northern Guilford 31-27(Regular Season)….It was (10-4) in 2015 for Coach Earl Bates and Morehead…Morehead had an outstanding QB this past Fall in senior Will Dabbs….
Bates has been head coach at Morehead for five seasons and the run goes like this:
2015-(10-4)
2014-(5-7)
2013-(4-7)
2012-(1-10)
2011-(0-11)….(20-39) overall for Coach Bates at Morehead, but some super improvement in the program over the years since he took over…Morehead was (0-11) the year before he got the job…Bates goes from (0-11) in 2011, to (10-4) in 2015….
Got a call about him yesterday and it looks like he would be a very good candidate for Southern Guilford….
On the other side of the county we have been seeing Tweets that Aaron Brand, the coach at Charlotte Vance High School, is one of the top candidates to be the next Northern Guilford Nighthawks’ head football coach…
Brand has been at Charlotte Vance for two seasons, taking over for Coach Keith Wilkes, the former WS Carver head coach, who was at Vance before Brand came in to leave his mark….
Brand had a great first year in 2014 with Vance posting an (11-4) record and then this past season, Charlotte Vance went (6-6)…Vance had an outstanding young QB in 6’4/220 pound Kingsley Ifedi….Brand goes (17-10) in two seasons at Vance and he has been an assistant coach at several other key CMS(Charlotte Mecklenburg County Schools)….
Just rumblings we have been seeing and hearing and it does give you a little fuel for thought and fodder to be chewing on until the new coaches are named…
The AD’s have been telling me that they are close and I thought NG might be ready to release the name of their new coach last week…Smith tells us that they are still reviewing names/applications and that we will be the first to know…Not sure about that, but we will keep our ears to the ground….
*****An old man once said after spending many days/years outside on the bench at the country store. “We don’t know anything, but we sure hear a lot”….That might just be our mantra/motto…Many days that is just how it goes/comes in….*****
+++++More on Aaron Brand when he took over at Charlotte Vance High School as the Cougars’ head football coach in 2014 and this coming in from the Charlotte Observer….+++++
When the first day of high school football practice was held Aug. 1 2014, there was a new attitude in place and a feeling that the Charlotte Vance Cougars could eventually reach greatness.
Aaron Brand took over as Vance’s fourth coach in five years. He brought an impressive resume with him as he tried to invigorate a Cougars program that had not won a conference championship since 2005.[Brand went (11-4) his first season at Vance.]
Brand was a Mallard Creek assistant for the four previous years, including the 2013 4AA state title run. Over the previous 10 years, he spent a total of six years as an assistant at Charlotte Independence during two stints, two years as a West Mecklenburg assistant and one year (2008) as West Charlotte’s head coach.
Brand has a reputation for being a winner and for his offenses scoring a lot of points. Mallard Creek averaged 50 points in 2013 and 45 in 2012.
“Working for (Mallard Creek) Coach (Mike) Palmieri was a lot of fun,” said Brand. “I knew it was my time to keep it moving. I wanted to stay marketable. You have to do something when you’re hot.”
Read more on this from the Observer when you CLICK HERE.
Hearing Brand was in and now out at Northern Guilford…
Things change…
Aaron Brand is out because Northern is going to be in rough shape. He was hoping to take over a State Championship team and he saw the talent there and ran. There is a reason Roscoe left. Yes there were some Health issues but from what everyone is saying he has a clean bill of health now. Roscoe left cause the talent pool is gone and he doesn’t want to hurt his record. Roscoe never built a JV program his entire program was built on bringing talent in from all over the County. If they hire someone there they better get a guy who can get kids to transfer from Dudley Page and NE cause if they don’t Northern will be a Sub .500 team. They made a huge mistake letting Jared Rolfes leave for NW Guilford so Roscoe could coach two years and leave them hanging. Yes they beat NW but now Rolfes has a team loaded with talent like Roscoe once had. If NW was in the 3A they would easily be a State Contender. In the 4A the Mallard Creeks and Butlers will be too much for them. I do expect to see NW win the Piedmont Triad Conference this year though and make a deep run in the playoffs. Hope Northern enjoyed the comeback tour of Roscoe cause The Vikings will be the most talented team in the area this fall.
Yes Sir, NW has a lot of talent coming back I think 17 or so starters. I don’t think we’ve ever had a team this talented in the history of NW Guilford. In fact I know we havent cause we’ve never had many D-1 kids. This year we will have Hennigan (D-1 UVA,NAVY,ELON) Tre Turner (D-1 State, UNC, VA Tech and others) Cloud (D-1 UVA, Elon). We also have Jake Smith back at QB and Kyle Finnie back at RB. Good luck trying to match up with all of those weapons. On Defense we will be led by Zach Tyler at LB. There are a lot of quality teams in the area but NW will have as much talent on offense as anyone especially at receiver. With East Forsyth SW Glenn and HPC losing so much talent I could see that conference ending with NW on top. I also could see NW looking for ALOT of payback on East for running the score up last year and their coaches running off at the mouth after the game. Should make for a Hell of a game the last week of the season. GO VIKINGS!!!
I love how the N&R, GSO Sports, and every other HS site in this area think NW Guilford and Northern is only team in this area. There kids get offers and the do a article on each kid. Kids at lower income schools get offers and you hear nothing. It’s always been that way so why would it change.