Tripp McCarty is excited about the progress his Pillow Academy team made in spring practice.
The Mustangs had their fifth and final workout in full pads Tuesday and will now get ready for summer workouts, which begin May 23.
“We got in some great building blocks to work on this summer and to get us ready for the upcoming season,” said McCarty, who was named PA’s new coach in February after compiling a 25-14 record in three years at Brookhaven Academy en route to winning a state AA title and two conference championships.
“I am real excited about the leadership from our older guys and the great effort that I saw from our whole team. We didn’t have to coach effort much at all, and that’s a great sign.
“Our kids came to practice each day with great focus, and that was a key for us because we were cramming a lot of things in.”
McCarty, who is certified through the National Football Academy to instruct quarterbacks and receivers, is known for producing top offensive teams. He is pleased with the progress the Mustangs made in the passing game in a short period of time.
“We’ve made good some strides in pitching and catching the ball. We’ve still got a long way to go, but I feel good about it after we saw good improvement in five practices.”
The PA coach said the addition of Adam Horn and Dillon Ussery at receiver is helping the passing game.
The Mustangs will begin three-a-day practices on July 31. Most teams practice twice a day, but McCarty says his system has worked well the past three years.
“We’ll keep the kids here at the facility from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and get in three practices during that time. We’ll feed them and hydrate them and get them out of here early enough in the day that they have plenty of time to recover for the next day,” McCarty said. “The first two practices of the day will be full workouts with the third being more of a fix-it session where we will slow things down during the heat of the day.”
As they look to end a string of three straight losing seasons, the Mustangs open up Aug. 22 at home against North Delta.
