The William Howard era began with a win.
The Gators gave the newly-named head coach his first victory in The Swamp, controlling Warren Central in a 28-6 performance on Friday night.
When Gator Nation wakes up on Saturday morning, it will see 1-0 next to the Greenwood football team in the standings.
“It’s great to be 1-0, there’s no doubt about it” Howard said after the win over the Dragons. “Like I said to the team afterwards, half the teams in the state are 0-1 and we’re not one of those teams. That’s a good feeling.
Greenwood is running a bit different scheme on offense under Howard, but it still has an emphasis on pounding the ball down the defense’s throat, and the Gators were effective in doing so.
Between five rushers, Greenwood ended the night with 296 yards on the ground. That’s the kind of evenness coach Howard was looking for when prepping for the new campaign. All four touchdowns came through the rushing attack as well.
Despite throwing for less than 40 yards, Howard was pleased with the results from the backfield.
“At times, we could’ve hit our receivers a little bit better and kept a better balance, but we had a lot of energy from our guys carrying the ball,” he said.
One of those guys was Triston Wilson, who ended the night with 17 carries for 110 yards and three touchdowns.
On the opening drive of the game, Triston put Greenwood ahead 7-0 with his first one-yard score of the game. A couple drives later, he visited the end-zone from 11 yards out and gave the Gators a 14-0 lead with 5:46 to go before the half.
His final touchdown of the game, which came with 9:42 left in the final quarter, gave Greenwood the stamp it was looking for. The Gators didn’t look back.
When asked about if that was the kind of performance he was looking for from his starting running back, Howard didn’t hesitate.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I think Tristan looks back at the game and he’s gonna say there are some things that he could’ve done differently. He got ankle tackled a couple times, which is uncharacteristic of him … He played an outstanding ball-game.”
Despite a five-man attack on Greenwood’s end, Warren Central coach Joel Taylor thought his defensive unit made the Gator work for every yard that came on the ground.
“Greenwood has a very strong rushing attack, and I thought we did a good job of limiting the big plays the best we could,” Taylor said. “They have some very talented kids who are going to get loose … I thought we did solid work in making (the Gators) execute play after play.”
It wasn’t just the Howard era that got going on Friday night, it was Zach Langevin’s chance to shine under center with the graduation of Jackson Adams.
Langevin had 94 total yards, but the highlight of the night was his two-yard rushing touchdown that was set up by a Warren Central fumble, giving Greenwood a 21-0 lead.
But it was more than just his yardage or his scoring run. It was the fact Langevin showed the ability to be a leader in the huddle.
“He made some mistakes, but we didn’t have any delay of game penalties and he got us on the ball and made sure we were in the right formation,, running the right play. He did a fantastic job,” Howard said.
On the other side, with a lot of hope heading into the matchup with Greenwood, Warren Central struggled to sustain drives throughout the night, finishing with 219 total yards of offense. During the third quarter, the Dragons were in prime spot for another scoring chance after a 43-yard catch from KeAndre Johnson, but the drive ended in a punt.
The lone touchdown for the Dragons came from a 17-yard scramble from quarterback Xavier Ingram. Xavier Patrick-Brown led the way on the ground with 13 carries for 54 yards.
“I like the fact that we were able to spread the ball around to a lot of different guys,” Taylor said. “I think for us to be dangerous as we possibly can, we’ve got to have all of our guys involved in the offense. It’s hard to involve all our kids when we can’t keep driving going.”
The only negative Greenwood had the entire night was self inflicted. Time and time again, the Gators found themselves enduring a penalty that would set a drive back or keep a drive going for Warren Central.
Greenwood amassed eight penalties for 80 yards — which is more than what it had through the passing game alone (30).
Howard took full responsibility for those miscues, explaining that it’s on him to prevent them and fix them moving forward. It’s a quick turnaround, as the Gators have a date with crosstown rival Warren East for Week 2.
“We made a lot of mistakes,” he said. “That’s a coaching thing. I made some mistakes. The kids made some mistakes. We’re going to try to shore those things up and get back to work on Monday and try to get ready for Warren East… I don’t know how many penalty yardage we finished with, but we had some 20-, 30-yard runs that were called back because of penalties.”
