Big Blue Faithful

I agree that it has its shortcomings. It is not perfect by any means and, as you said, can kill you if you need alot of yards very quickly. As many people have pointed out, the veer is possible but requires alot of talent. Obviously, Gate City's talent was nowhere near what it needed to be, so I believe a solution to that lack of talent would be to have a well coached team that can run an offense like the T that doesn't require a lot of talent to execute. It's slow and drains alot of time off the clock so the other team's offense has less time to execute. If the offense is having a rough night, a tough defense (which is something Gate City is usually known for) can bail that offense out and eventually there should be an adjustment made to fix the offensive problems. It isn't very flashy or unpredictable, but it isn't meant to be. The players are to be so well coached that they could simply walk up to the line, tell the defense where the ball is going, and dare them to stop it. It doesn't incorporate passes very well, but GC would've struggled to pass out of almost any formation this past season.

I simply wanted to explain why I thought the program was doing poorly. I believe he is mainly responsible. Whether or not you believe that is up for you to decide. I've listed my reasons and would love to hear your opinion. As I said, I hope he finds success in whatever he does in the future.

That's true. Honestly, I'm not familiar with the different offenses run outside of who we played. Personally, I'm not a fan of it and believe up the gut, three yards and a cloud of dust football is the way to go. It's what Gate City was built on and was what I grew up with.

As someone who played in the Akers era, I am truly glad he is gone. I don't believe we should bash him, the time for that has passed. But, as someone who has been fortunate enough to play under some wonderful coaches, I can say that the man did not know what he was doing. Week to week, our offense would completely change. There was no foundation. He wanted to run the veer that had worked at Retreat, but the offense simply does not work in 2a football. In 1a, where you're only looking at one or two really good players on each team, it works fine. However, in 2a there are too many talented players on the field. Once he realized that it wouldn't work, he didn't change it. He was too prideful. He could not admit that others knew better than him and would not listen to their advice. Another problem was his butchering of the little league program. He did not care enough to take charge of the program himself, and he allowed coaches to stack their teams and ruin the 4 team structure. As a former Redskin, it pained me to see the kids losing hope and eventually have to cut their season short for coaches not doing what was right for the kids. The travel ball was a product of this pride. It told kids who weren't "good enough" to go to the house and give up. Rather than a fun, month long season where you played against your friends and learned the game of football, it became a 3 month long slog where you were forced to run plays the varsity players didn't even know how to run properly. If I would have grown up with this system, I probably wouldn't have made it to varsity. I would have been one of the "not good enough" to make the travel team. I would've been told to give up what I loved because my dad wasn't a former player and I was an undersized lineman. Akers allowed this attitude, and i believe that's why numbers have been down. Many former players have expressed their disdain for him and say they would have continued playing if it weren't for him. And that leads to what I believe was Akers biggest problem: the lack of respect. The man was a jerk to his players, belittling new players who were just learning varsity and telling experienced players that they didn't want to win any and that they should just go home. This is why I think the team started to lose faith through the season. We were told we did not deserve to be there and then he would try and say he cared about us. The team wanted to win, but the constant bashing slowly took its toll on the team and we no longer believed in him. We did not respect him, for he did not respect us, and that, more than anything, is why he failed at Gate City. I hope that in whatever he does in the future, he is successful and I hope him and his new family find happiness in their future plans. But, I do not believe the man was right for the job and I believe he was responsible for destroying something I held so near to my heart. I pray Gate City finds the right person for the job in the future, for the community's, my former teammates', and for all the future blue devil's sakes.