Spring football is even more important for a new coach and that is the situation at Upper Iowa where Tom Shea has taken over after spending the past two seasons as the head coach at Dakota State. Shea is using this spring to install his system and evaluate talent.
He says they need to get the team familiar with the terminology and schemes they will be using and the coaches need to evaluate the talent they have to work with. Shea is installing his version of the "spread" on offense but says defensively there won’t be as many changes.
Shea says the defensive coordinator was on the staff last year and promoted, so there won’t be the changes they have on offense. Shea says turning a program around begins with attitude. He says the success he has had involved getting the kids feeling good about themselves and having fun at it. Shea says when you have fun, you work harder.
The Peacocks were 2-9 a year ago and Shea says improvement will not be easy in a Northern Sun Conference that continues to get better.