Patriots stay 'humble' through hype

MURFREESBORO – Three SEC commitments, 10 players with scholarship offers and one nationally televised game on ESPN adds up to lofty expectations for the Oakland High School football team in 2014.

"Those rankings and all the college offers and stuff doesn't matter," Oakland coach Thomas McDaniel said. "You still have to go out and play the game.

"The biggest thing I can say and brag about our team this year is all the attention we've gotten in the offseason with the recruiting and the early offers, I feel like we've stayed really humble."

Maintaining that humility throughout the grind of the regular season and a potential playoff run will fall on the shoulders of McDaniel and one abnormally-large senior class of 32 players.

"We've got a good group of guys and we're all really tight," said Oakland senior Jack Jones, a Tennessee commitment. "We're always trying to keep each other humble.

"If somebody's head is getting too big, we do a good job of getting them back down to earth and saying, 'Hey, think about our ultimate goal here. Think about what we're out here doing.' "

After the team wrapped up its first full-pad practice of the new season Monday morning, McDaniel said leadership from Jones and his fellow seniors along with a change in his coaching philosophy will keep his players grounded and focused on trying to win the school's first gold ball since 2008.

"Roster-wise, yes," McDaniel said when asked if this year's team was the most talented he's ever coached. "I just think top to bottom, it's probably the most talent at each position."

Despite that talent though, the seventh-year head coach said it hasn't gone to his players' heads.

"The guys who haven't gotten offers have continued to work and not let it be a distraction to them," he said. "The guys who have already committed or are fixing to commit haven't let that distract (from) what our singular purpose is right now, and that's to try and get ready for Blackman."

New philosophy

The magnitude of the first game of the year coupled with the Patriots' experienced roster has caused McDaniel to alter his coaching philosophy.

His new approach is about the quality of practice time, not just the quantity.

"My first few years here, whether it be immaturity or whatever, we just approached everything the same way no matter what the day or the situation or the player," McDaniel said about the change. "We were just going to go beat them to death.

"As you go through it, you get a little more intelligent about how you handle some things. We're not going to completely pull them out of scrimmages. We just have to manage reps and be sure they are getting quality snaps. When we feel like once they've gotten enough snaps, we pull them out so that we don't have any unnecessary injuries."

McDaniel said the change in practice habits won't hinder his team's physical mentality, which helped bring the Patriots their first undefeated regular season a season ago.

"We're obviously not going to go in shells all fall and we're not going to practice without a physical attitude," he said. "We're just trying to be smart about how we're managing reps. Blackman will be one of if not the most physical team we play all year. Their physicality, we have to be able to match that. The No. 1 priority for us is going to be having enough experience (in the preseason) and yet being healthy when we get to that point.

"It's about managing reps in the preseason and ... managing reps in scrimmages. It's something that (the players) don't like. We're going to play them but we've got to be smart about how we handle those reps."

Contact Will Borthick at 615-278-5167 or wborthick@dnj.com. Follow him on Twitter @willborthick.