The Waldron Sr Bulldogs football program took some shots over the past decade. With the program sitting at the bottom of the 4A-4, a change was made at the Top Dog position as the Bulldogs reached out to hire Doug Powell, former head football coach from Magazine. Some viewed a 4A school like Waldron dipping down to hire a 2A head coach as scraping the bottom of the barrel. The Bulldog faithful soon found out though that the bottom is where all of the good stuff is as Powell led Waldron past rivals, Mansfield, in a 41-0 blowout for the first time in over a decade along with close thrillers against conferences Mena, Pottsville, and Dardanelle.
Coach Powell’s review of his first year as a Bulldog was impressive, but Powell gives all credit to his players. “Overall we made progress as a program. We had some very talented seniors that made big plays for us. They helped us win convincingly, and compete to the end with our losses. Along with the Seniors, we had a young talented group. I feel that the underclassmen improved throughout the season, and will be the foundation for the season approaching”. With the Bulldogs finally gaining traction last season, all in the orange and black nation are eagerly looking forward to what “Doug’s Dogs” are going to do this season.
As Coach Powell mentioned, the 2020 underclassmen improved quite a bit as the season went on. That will be a huge bonus for Waldron in 2021. The Bulldogs will see eight returning starters on the field. Seven of those returning will be on the offensive side of the ball which will be a key point of emphasis in the stacked 4A-4. Impact players such as Blake Owens, Patrick Poor, Leo Lopez, Miguel Triana, Gabino Grano, along with brothers Trenton and Trevor Hunt will no doubt set quite a precedent when it comes to moving the ball downfield. “Our biggest strength is returning a competitive group of players with a season of experience to build upon as the practices begin. I believe we have an additional handful of players with promising potential that will emerge as summer closes out.” If there’s a kink in the Bulldogs chain it would be that Waldron’s physical size advantage from last season took a hit as many of their “Big Dogs” have graduated. Although it is hard to replace size, the Bulldogs have solid numbers that should help them tremendously with depth and fatigue.
The Bulldogs have the talent, the numbers, and the bite to back up their bark. One thing they also have that often gets forgotten is the leadership of a great coaching staff. Waldron has a top-tier assistant coaching staff that knows how to mold players into becoming their best on the field and off it. Assistant Coaches Mark Brigance, Garrett Lazenby, Robert Coker, and Chance Tanner are behind the scene cogs that keep the Bulldog dozer chugging along. Although Waldron did lose assistant coach Nick Stovall this offseason, they dipped back into the snake pit of Magazine by picking up Cory Chambers to be their new offensive coordinator.
“Our expectations this season is to be once again competitive. This season we are looking to find a way to win the close contest. We made a lot of plays to win last season but fell just a few plays short to win the close games. This season we want to make the plays necessary to accomplish our goals, for each game and the overall season. Last year the team gave us a solid foundation to build upon. We need to take advantage of the accomplishments made and the painful shortcomings. I feel that we have made gains in the offseason which should help us to accomplish more this season. Nothing will be given to us and we know that we must make it happen to advance the program forward. We are sitting in better overall shape than this time last year.”
