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March 26, 2011

JUNIOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Spring makes Smiley grin

Coach fired up as three weeks of workouts begin

Jayson Larson The Athens Review

ATHENS — There’s this list of things Trinity Valley Community College Head Football Coach Brad Smiley has been meaning to do in the offseason for, well, too many offseasons now that he never quite gets around to.

But on Friday, Smiley — a Baylor alumn — sat down with College Football Hall of Famer and former Bears coach Grant Teaff in Waco. They just talked football for a while.

And it wasn’t long ago that he blew an entire afternoon chatting Xs and Os with Stephen F. Austin’s J.C. Harper, who has taken the Lumberjacks from 0-11 three seasons ago to a Southland Conference championship last season.

It’s been a quality offseason for Smiley. And it doesn’t hurt that football is once again around the corner.

Though their season opener in Kansas against Independence Community College is still 155 days away — exactly — the Cardinals will begin 20 days of spring workouts on Monday.

TVCC is coming off a season in which it made it to the Southwest Junior College Football Conference championship game, losing to eventual national champion Navarro. Even though the Cardinals lost a number of key players from last year’s squad, the perpetually gregarious Smiley seems to be entering spring workouts with an extra pep in his step.

“It’s been a great offseason so far,” he said. “We’ve got great numbers, our recruiting class is great and I’ve had the chance to do some things that in years past I haven’t been able to do.”

Smiley said workouts will be held throughout each week during the 20 days allowed by the NJCAA, with scrimmages held on Saturdays.

The Cardinal offense — which lost 4,500 total yards with the departures of quarterback Si’Darius Blackshire and running back Josh Johnson — will be one of the major phases of the game where coaches will be looking for playmakers.

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