CHERRY VALLEY — Former Jonesboro defensive coordinator Ty Mimbs said he doesn’t want to “reinvent the wheel” upon taking over as Cross County head football coach.
Mimbs was hired as the replacement for Van Paschal, who has moved to Harrison.
Mimbs did not have a whole lot of time to install a new offense and defense, and he said, what the T-Birds have been doing is working.
“The hard work that the guys have been able to put in with the first two weeks we haven’t had any issues with our work ethic. The guys have come in every single day and have lifted weights, have ran. It has done really well with our install with our defense,” he said. “With the offense, it’s a very complex offense. Those guys have been running it since the junior high and they’re really good at it. What I mean by reinventing the wheel, I want to take what they’re good at and just sprinkle in little different pieces to it.
“That way, it can be consistent throughout the junior high, throughout the senior high because that’s what those guys are confident in,” Mimbs added. “If they’re confident, they’re going to play hard, they’re going to play fast, and at the end of the day, that’s our goal for those guys to be as confident as possible on both sides of the football.”
Cross County won the Class 2A state title in football last season. Mimbs said he understands the pressure but sees it as an opportunity as the new coach of the T-Birds.
“I think it’s an opportunity because we do have some key pieces that are coming back from the state championship team, but across the board, we’re young,” he said. “Our offensive line and defensive line are primarily sophomores and freshmen that we’ve brought up. We’ve got a handful of seniors. There’s three seniors on the offensive line that played a real pivotal role but our sophomores and freshmen, I’m really excited about. They’re bigger bodies. They’ve really opened up to be a vocal leader.
“That’s hard to do as an underclassman. Sometimes you’ll see those guys come into a program and they’re real quiet, real shy but we challenge them to be a leader by example and vocal,” Mimbs added. “Those young guys have stepped into that role. It’s hard to teach a student how to be a leader. I try to tell them all the time get outside of your comfortable zone. We want to be comfortable in uncomfort, and a lot of guys struggle with leading vocally but those offensive linemen, the big guys have done a really good job of that.”
The Arkansas Activities Association’s dead period continues through July 4. That’s when the Ty Mimbs era of Cross County football – and the Randy Coleman era of Wynne Yellowjackets football – will really take off.
Coleman is a former Jonesboro head coach, and hired Mimbs on his staff after Mimbs graduated from Arkansas State.
