Spring Insider: Q&A with Coach Dave White
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One-one-one with Edison Coach Dave White:
Question: Tell us about your team.
Dave White: We have some good athletes. I think we have some speed. We’re pretty good in the skill positions. We have three first-team all-leaguers: Jeff Crissman, Will Andrew and Preston Spence. Our second-team players were Bryce Brantley, Wes Graves and Wade Houston. I think our biggest question mark is probably at quarterback. That’s got to be a position that’s inexperienced. Offensively, we’re behind right now. Defensively, we’re ahead of the game a little bit. With our tough preseason, we’ll learn from our mistakes. Hopefully, by league, if we’re healthy we’ll be an improved team.
Q: But you had a lot of young players play last year, didn’t you?
DW: We had a lot of young kids play part time. Some of the receivers played last year, some of the defensive backs played. We have enough, I think. The only area we’re concerned at is quarterback. There’s no experience. You play in the Sunset League, Division I, everyone else has to play a little bit better. You’re in your second year, your third year of varsity football, you should be a good player. We’re not six in the county right now. Hopefully we’re in the top 10 at the end of the year. That’s our goal. But I’m proud of what we’ve been doing lately.
Q: Do you have a sense of where the character of your team will come from now that quarterback Nick Crissman is gone?
DW: You never know until you’re put to the test, or things are going bad. We always tell the kids, 'Sports doesn’t build character, it reveals it.' It’s easy to have character when things are going good. ... A couple players have been leading offseason workouts, Bryce Brantley and Will Andrew. To win championships you need guys that you didn’t think were going to come through for you and they do.
Q: How is the quarterback competition going with Matthew Viles, Garrett Heckel and John DeLuca?
DW: We have five kids, (including) Stephen Andrew and Davion Orphey. We have a little of everything. Some throw better than they run. Some run a little better than they throw. Davion is the best runner but he’s the youngest. There’s talent in all of them, but they’re all relieving. No one’s got the job yet. Competition is good. It makes them better.
Q: Is anyone leading it?
DW: I don’t think so. At this time, we’re really splitting time with these guys. One day one guy will be better, another day another guy. It might be two, three games into the season until we figure it out. The first three games, before we play Servite and Mater Dei, I’ll probably play two or three quarterbacks every game
Q: Did last year’s rough nonleague schedule sit well with you?
DW: We’ve been playing Mater Dei and Servite for a long time. We love playing hard teams. They’re well coached. You have to play those kinds of teams in the preseason. A lot of times some of the teams we play in our league don’t have that kind of speed so we have to face that speed to be ready in the payoffs. I think we have become a good program because we have a hard schedule. I’d rather improve in the preseason and get better than get wins.
Q: What do you think about your team sitting atop the league the past few years but not being the favorite in a loaded Sunset League this year?
DW: We definitely won’t be the favorite. Los Al is probably the favorite. Newport’s got a lot of good skill kids coming back. Esperanza is always good and Fountain Valley is improving. We weren’t the favorite in 2003 and we won it. We weren’t the favorite in 2005 and we won it. I’m not sure we were the favorite last year. USC and UCLA are not knocking down our door for kids. We just have a bunch of high school kids. We don’t care. But it’s not where you start it’s where you finish. We weren’t supposed to win league in 2006 and we were in the CIF finals. You have to get better every week.
Q: Your team didn’t always score a lot of points last year. Did you have to find a different way compared to years past?
DW: One of the things that we do well, our school, the coaches, we kind of change our offense and defense to what we have. We’ve been blessed with a lot of good quarterbacks. It just depends on what we have. When we feel like we have a good running back and offensive line, we’re going to run the ball more. The defense is really what gets you there. The offense you’re going to have games where you’re going to struggle, you’re going to turn the ball over, you’re going to have penalties. The defense always plays hard.
I think the key is most of your key players and our coaches, they play offense and defense, they coach offense and defense. It’s not like in college where you get little cliques between the offense and the defense. For us it’s all the same. We win as a team, we lose as a team. If you don’t learn from your losses it’s not worth it. I don’t care if I win 49-47 or 3-2, the bottom line is to win.
>> Edison's 2007-08 Season Totals
>> More Spring Football Insider articles on Edison
>> Insider articles on other O.C. football programs
Contact the writer: amaya@ocregister.com
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