Green Wave Coach Excited For Rivalry Game

“So far, we’re undefeated and we feel good about that,” Easley High Head Football Coach Grayson Howell says with a smile when asked about this year’s season, his first leading the Green Wave.

“To have been able to be here since February, that’s just been invaluable,” Howell said. “To be able to create expectations in February instead of in June or in May has just been great. High school coaches, head coaches, when there’s turnover, you don’t get that opportunity very often.

“You usually have to finish your year out where you are, fight, scratch and claw to find ways to get to your new school and try to put things in place, spring practice is a headache, you feel like you’re going back and forth between two places,” he continued. “To be able to be here, unencumbered, for that time period has been really nice, to build relationships with our players, to just get to know them. I knew by April who we could depend on and who we couldn’t. You start working on those kids instead of finding out in July or August. It’s been nice.”

When considering whether to take the job, Howell didn’t have an opportunity to see the Green Wave in action.

“I knew they had won some games,” he said. “I’d never met Chad (Stewart). I kind of knew what they were doing offensively through the grapevine or whatever. I hadn’t seen them play – I think maybe I’d seen some highlights of C.J. somewhere, that’s really it.”

Howell said he’s always loved the area and had wished to return to the Upstate since attending college.

“That was the draw,” he said. “I knew Easley was a good school. I’d actually substitute taught there when I was in college. I knew some of the people, knew Tim Mullis, our principal and Chris Carter, our athletic director, had relationships with them. I just felt like it’d be a good fit for me and my family.”

Howell said he feels good about most of the Green Wave.

“We’re not deep,” he said. “We’re going to have to figure out a way to develop that, either with our younger guys or some of our older guys who haven’t gotten a lot of reps before – they’re going to be seniors who just haven’t played much. Depth is the issue. Any time you have a team of 55-60 instead of a team of 75-80, you’re missing some key backups in there somewhere.”

“I feel like our front line talent is good enough to win some games,” Howell said. “We’ll try to make sure we put them in positions to be successful – they’ll actually have to go do the work on Fridays.”

Howell said he keeps hearing the word “spread” when it comes to the kind of game he runs.

“I don’t think we’re a spread team,” he said. “I kind of term it a ‘multi-formation one back team.’  We’re going to usually have a tight end on the field, usually have three receivers in the game and one tailback. We’re going to try to formation people. We’re going to try to do things in a kind of ‘Hurry up’ manner, as long as it benefits us, try to dictate tempo.  

“Defensively, we’ll look a lot like we did last year,” Howell continued. “Our staff has pretty much stayed the same, the verbage is staying the same on that side of the ball.  Defensively, there hasn’t been any transition for them, other than just younger guys having to step up.

“We want to play hard and play fast and play smart,” he said. “We’ll do what we can as coach and staff to put that in them, then they’ve got to go do it.”

The Green Wave’s first game with Howell as coach is the rivalry game with Pickens on August 23.

“That’s good and bad,” Howell said. “I’d like to have another week to prepare. I’m sure Chad would like to have another week to prepare over in Pickens too.  The good thing about this rivalry is I’ve got the utmost respect for the guys over there. When you can be a rival and still like the guy standing on the other side, and still play hard, and know that they’re going to do it the right way – you play football and at the end of it, you go shake your buddy’s hand and wish them well the rest of the year.

“I know this game means a lot to our two communities and it’s going to mean a lot to our players, I hope,” Howell said. “We won’t overhype it to the point where we can’t go out and perform, but we’ll talk about it being special – I don’t think we’ll have to say much. I’m excited to see what this place is going to look like that night.”