“Expectations are high” says second-year Red Boiling Springs High School football coach Kyle Shoulders. Red Boiling Springs went 2-8 last year, which snapped a 60+ game losing streak that had plagued the Bulldog football program for seven years.

Shoulders said last year a lot of his players were inexperienced, and the players did not really know what to expect from coach Shoulders and his staff, but that’s simply not the case this year. “Experience is our strong point this year” said head coach Kyle Shoulders.

Red Boiling Springs will be returning a lot of starters from last year including Brandon Kelley, Shelton Watson, Cody Dickens, Isaiah Washington, and Dakota McCarter are among several other key players returning for the 2010 football season for the Bulldogs.

The 2009 season proved to be a successful one. Although the Bulldogs went 2-8, the Bulldogs won the first two games of the season, defeating Oakdale and Pickett County. “The first two wins helped us be competitive in several of our other games” said Shoulders. Red Boiling Springs lost three close games last year, Jackson County edged them by a score of 14-8, Sunbright defeated RBS 28-21 and Monterey won by a similar score. Against Clay County, Red Boiling Springs was in the ball game the whole time, losing by a final of 26-6. “Red Boiling Springs was competitive week after week” stated coach Shoulders.

The Bulldogs recently finished up a very productive spring practice. “These boys came into spring practice and worked their tails off” said Shoulders, “They are the hardest working and most dedicated bunch that I have ever been around in my coaching career”.

Red Boiling Springs had two scrimmages during the spring, first against Lancaster Christian which they tied 2-2. Then Community High School traveled to Red Boiling Springs and the Bulldogs won that scrimmage by a score of 6-2. The team then capped off spring practice with their annual Red vs. White game, Shoulders said that he felt like we had a lot of enthusiasm.

One thing coach Shoulders has seen that he has liked has been the leadership in this year’s team. He says that’s one thing that they lacked last year, which can be linked to experience. Shoulders said last year the team did not really know what to expect from him as a first-year coach, but now that they have spent a full calendar year together, the players now know what to expect from him, and Shoulders knows what to expect from them. “We got a lot of guys standing up and being leaders” said coach Shoulders.

There is always room for improvement though, states Shoulders. “We broke the losing streak last year, but we still do not know how to handle adversity. When things go wrong we need to bounce back and keep fighting”.

Although the season doesn’t kick off so another three months, the Red Boiling Springs football team, it’s players and staff, are making excellent strides towards building off of last year’s successful season and making the 2010 season even better.