USJ getting comfortable with new coach and system

JACKSON, Tenn. — With the high school football season less than one month away from kicking off, the USJ Bruins are making sure they are ready to go. The team is hard at work with their new leader Michael Stroup, who came over from Scotts Hill.

Stroup walked into a room full of talent as the Bruins returned most of their skill guys, but it’s early in the season and he knows there’s still a long ways to go.

“It’s a different system from what they’ve ran here in the past,” Stroup said. “But it’s slowly coming together, you know we have a lot of reads for the quarterback, receivers have a lot of options to run their routes. But we’re still in our early phases, so hopefully we can get a lot more accomplished in the coming weeks.”

In his first season at USJ, head coach Michael Stroup is taking things slowly,  he has a very cliche approach when it comes to the game of football, but that cliche approach did help his Scotts Hill Lions make a nice playoff run last season.

“All I worry about is getting a first down, and then once we get that first down, we want to get another,” he said. “You know I kind of keep it that small, don’t look at the end of the rope. I want to start at the beginning and work our way down. That’s kind of how I do with coaching football. We just want to stop people from getting first downs and we just want to be able to get first downs.”

The Bruins open up the season August 18th against the Chester County Eagles.