Dear Catamount Club Members,
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your support during the 2010 season. Our home crowds and the Purple Zone pre-game festivities created a great game atmosphere for our recruits, players, and fans. Your support on the road this season was tremendous and at times better than the home team’s crowd.
The 2010 season was disappointing to our staff and players. Our expectations were to have a winning season and be competitive in every game. I truly believe our players played hard and never gave up on the program or themselves! Even though our record was disappointing, we continued to build the program and build the character of our players on and off the field. When our staff arrived, we inherited a team on academic probation. Two years later, our team GPA is over 2.85 and we have had our best Academic Progress Rate (APR) ever in the football program’s history.
Western Carolina Football will stay the course and continue to implement our plan. Building this program into a winner will continue to take hard work and commitment from our staff and players. We must continue to challenge ourselves and reach our expectations. Having a winning season is our first goal, but maintaining and being consistent year after year is critical. When this is accomplished, getting the SoCon championships will come.
As was announced following the 2010 season, I will be serving as the Offensive Coordinator as well as the Head Coach next season. I’m excited about this decision and can’t wait to get started. We will be more productive on offense next season. Offensive points through touchdowns and field goals must improve. Scoring in the red zone will be stressed. Reduced turnovers will be critical to our success and keep our defense off the field and out of bad field position. I have made a few staff changes and will continue to reorganize these duties. We must be efficient with our preparation and challenge our players to execute the details of their assignments. The lack of success in 2010 will not deter us, but rather motivate us to success in 2011!
It is very important for us to continue to build depth and experience through recruiting. The past two classes have been in the top five recruiting classes in FCS football. In this 2011 recruiting class we will upgrade our talent by adding six to eight transfer students who will compete immediately with our returning players. We will continue to recruit high school players, probably eight to ten from the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The immediate help in this class must come from three to four junior college offensive linemen and two to three junior college defensive linemen.
We will be conducting spring football from March 15th through April 15th. Meetings will be from 3:30-5:00pm, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and practice on the field from 5:15 to 7:15pm on the same days. Because of surgeries and lack of depth in the defensive and offensive line, we will not be having a spring game. We will use our time to work on fundamentals and techniques. Limited scrimmages will be held on Fridays during spring practice.
With 75 returning players and 45 lettermen in that group, we have a great nucleus to build this team around in 2011. We must protect our home turf. Our players and staff must understand and believe this. Our schedule next season is set up for success with six home games and five away games. I expect this team to be much more mature and handle the pressure of playing on the road. There is no doubt that the SoCon is the most competitive conference in FCS, but we are excited about the challenge.
One game at a time we will build a program that all Catamounts can be proud of. Again, thank you for all of your support and I look forward to seeing you in the stands at E. J. Whitmire Stadium next fall.
Go Catamounts!
Coach Wagner
Western Carolina University
Head Football Coach
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