Jun 19, 2009 4 min read

Waynesburg Central football coach Joe Kuhns has been at the helm of the Raiders since December and while he says much has been improved, the Raiders still have much work to do before the season starts. “They have just been sponges when it comes to the information we have gone over the past few months,” said Kuhns, who left California Area High School after seven years to take the job with the Raiders. “It’s been a couple of years since they have been in a great position, in terms of number of wins, but I can see they really want to get back to their proud tradition and with the looks of desperation and determination they have I think they can get there. Their attitude has been positive.” Kuhns said the team has focused on speed drills since he has arrived as he considers this his bread and butter of the off-season in getting his players in shape.

“We have been focusing on speed drills and running as much as we can,” said Kuhns. “The big thing for me is to get these guys in shape. Being in shape has been my main concern for teams in the past. You need to be able to go the distance in games and if you are getting tired now before camp is even here I would be worried. So I want to get these guys into shape.”

Another main concern for Kuhn was getting more players to join the program or to get former players to return to it.

“We had some guys who had apparently left in the past few seasons because of the state of the team in the past and coming in I had a roster of just 15 men,” said Kuhns. “Now we have closer to 30-40 so we’re getting there. We just want to get the word out about the team and I think guys on it are doing just that.”

Kuhns said he has been working on the playbook with the team, getting them adjusted to the new schemes.

“I’m a coach that sometimes does things outside of the box,” said Kuhns. “So some of my tactics the players are still getting use to. But they are working hard to pick up everything. Right now we are just going over the fundamentals of football, going back to the basics and teaching new terminology with the playbook and different things they haven’t seen in the past. But they want to learn and you have to love that when a team is so determined to change their state of affairs.”

Relating to his first head-coaching job with the Trojans, Kuhns said he has learned to have a better coaching personality then when he was with the Trojans.

“When I first started at California I was trying to at first learn how to coach while my players were learning from me,” Kuhns said. “Here it’s different in that I understand what the players expect and need.”

“I walked into a different situation with California in terms of wins and losses than I did here,” said Kuhns. “But I know the challenge here. That’s why I came – to figure out if I was good enough as a coach to help teach the players so they can do what they want and that is to win some games.”

Kuhns also said he has brought only one assistant coach from the Trojans to help transform the team.

“I only have a quarterback coach/defensive coordinator with me from the California team so it’s been kind of unique working with a new coaching staff at the same time you’re teaching a new system to the guys,” said Kuhns.

Kuhns said the key to winning is getting his players to believe they can win by realizing how close they were last year.

“This is a team that lost close games last year,” said Kuhns. “We’re trying to convince them here that each thing they do from speed drills to basic 7-on-7 practices can be the difference of going from one win to six wins and from six wins to something else. They need to want it though and hard practice and they have given a lot to do that. We still have work to do, though. We still need to be mentally strong and be that way when we face challenges and not give up.”

“I think when they get that mental toughness, they will be great,” said Kuhns. “But it’s still something we need to work on before that first game of the year.”