Brothers Ryan and Tony Glazer will be running the Liberty County Panthers’ offense and defense, respectively, this season. They are filling in spots after assistant coach Jeff Daffron left the school for a head coaching job at Telfair High School.
Glazer is entering his fifth season on the Panthers’ coaching staff and said he plans to keep things the same.
"We are going to run the same offense but obviously we’ll have a new quarterback since (Julian) Stokes is gone," the new offensive coordinator said.
The Panthers run a spread offense, which Stokes managed successfully with his speed and ability to read the defense.
Glazer said they would not announce the starting quarterback until after the Bradwell/Liberty scrimmage set for 7:30 p.m. Aug. 19.
"We are trying to work Jarrett Rivers and Matt Desbiens," he said. "Right now it’s an open competition between them two."
In addition to preparing for the scrimmage, the coach said the team is looking at game one at Americus-Sumter High School.
The Sumter Panthers played in 1-AAAA last season and finished 4-6 overall and 2-6 in the region. This season, the Americus team was moved to Region 1-AAA.
Liberty’s offense last season carried the squad to an 8-4 overall record and 4-2 Region 3-AAA record.
On defense, Tony Glazer joined the coaching staff last season and primarily worked with the defensive line.
He said he plan to build on the system already in place.
"We are going to run the same defense we ran last year put in place by coach (Jeff) Daffron," he said. "We did well running the 4-4 last year. We might do some minor tweaking and become a little more aggressive and try some different coverages, but for the most part it will be the same type of defense."
The Panthers’ defense lost several starters, but the new coordinator said the team still has a strong core of returning players.
The strong returning players include Tucory Rhodes, who had 69 tackles last season, Shakur Cook, who made 41 tackles, and Demetrick Mothershed, who had 32 tackles, as well as five sacks.
Glazer said Melvin King and Deante Lumpkin, who played a lot of games last season, but were not starters, will be stepping up their roles as well.
"By the time we scrimmage Bradwell we think we’ll have our starters in place," he said. "But it will give us an opportunity to see them in live competition because it’s different practicing with the guys out here and seeing the plays versus playing the game and trying to read the plays in action."