The 2022 season was a historic season for the Charleston Tigers football program that Tigers fans will never forget. A large and talented senior class led the Tigers to just a few points shy of going undefeated, annihilated everyone in their path in the state playoffs on their way to the state title.
But as fun as that was, 2022 is over, and for head football coach Ricky May and his staff, the rebuilding process started in mid-December and continues now into spring football practice.
The heavy graduation of the seniors on last season’s team have left the program with a very young and inexperienced roster for 2023. Make no mistake, there is talent on this team, but most of them have not played a down of varsity football.
And with all of the success next season’s team had in junior high, playing at the senior high level is a completely different game. Charleston has always faced a long history of opposing teams circling them on their schedules and playing their best games against the Tigers. It is something that Charleston players know and have understood over the years. But coming off of last year’s state title, it is assured that all of Charleston’s common opponents from last year will be out to even the score this year against the Tigers.
And that factor will begin early in the schedule next fall with the traditional tough non-conference portion of their schedule. It will be important, regardless of the outcome of those non-conference games, for the Tigers to emerge as injury-free as possible before they begin conference play for another spot in the state playoffs. It will be a little like the 2019 season where Coach Ricky May, in his first season as head coach, faced a slew of injuries that decimated his team. He did a masterful job that year keeping the team together in his first season and getting players ready for conference play. The Tigers made the playoffs that year and that will again be the goal in 2023.
The 2019 team was more experienced going into the season that year than the 2023 team will be, but the 2019 team quickly started racking up the injuries, even before the season started that year. In fact, as good as last year’s Tigers were in winning a state championship, the 2019 season, in my opinion, may have been Coach May’s best job of coaching and managing his team to date.
RNN Sports was on campus earlier in the week to observe and photograph the day’s spring practice workout at Alumni Stadium. The Tigers coaches are excellent teachers, and I observed a lot of that taking place, especially in the early portion of the practice. The practice, with players dressed in pads, gradually picked up in intensity with a short, two-minute style scrimmage held in the final period of the practice.
Each team is different, and the culture of each team is equally different. The senior class that graduated in 2022 had a reputation of “bringing it” every day in practice, and especially on game days. I don’t recall Charleston coaches having to motivate them much to play hard, fast, and continuously on every down. That, in my opinion, is in part what made them state champions.
But as is the case with a lot of programs that are coaching kids coming up from junior high to play senior high ball for the first year, the intensity and speed of both practices and games are different to the young players. Openly, I observed that this may be a young group of Tigers that may have to learn and make the step-up to senior high level intensity. I believe they most certainly will. The championship culture at Charleston will motivate them, and the coaching staff will certainly push them.
After the day’s workout, I asked Coach May for any comments he may have on this team and where they stand at this early point in spring practice. Coach May responded by saying, “We are struggling right now. A lot of youth and inexperience in a lot of key spots right now. We have had a few bright spots to build on.”
Coach May and his excellent staff of assistant coaches will have the Tigers ready to play in Week One of the 2023 season, and it is my opinion that the team may struggle a little bit early against a tough, 4A non-conference schedule, but I believe Tigers fans will see their team improve each week during conference play and be in the running for a state playoff berth at the end of the regular season.
If you have not already done so, more pictures from the Tigers’ spring practice are available now on Facebook at Charleston Tigers Sports.
Spring practices will continue for this week until summer workouts begin around May 31. Charleston will host football camps at Alumni Field starting in June. Stay with RNN Sports for the latest on Charleston football this summer and into the fall 2023 season!
