West Texas Huddle: Wall football team looking forward to changes ahead of 2024 season

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The Standard-Times will be previewing area high school football teams throughout July and August as part of the West Texas Huddleseries. For previous stories in the series go to gosanangelo.com.

Wall Hawks

District: 4-3A Division II

2023 Record: 11-3, 5-0

Head coach: Craig Slaughter

Most recent district championship: 2023

State titles: N/A

Top returners

DE Brylan White, LB Ethan Michalewicz, WR Kellan Oliver, RB/DB Hagyn Barbee, WR/DB Briggs Jones, OL Emmett Marlatt

What to know for 2024

For the first time in 17 years, the Hawks will be without Houston Guy at the helm of their football program. Slaughter was promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach this off-season in hopes he can help push Wall over the regional final hump and secure the program's first state title. With the departure of Guy, Wall will change its offensive approach from the flex-bone to a more modern spread offense. However, the Hawks will be without last year's starting quarterback Gunnar Dillard, who plans on sitting out the football season after committing to the University of Oklahoma for baseball. Junior Landon York and senior Caleb Braden will compete for the starting position during fall practices, Slaughter said. While the offense sees major changes, the defense should remain constant as one of the best in Class 3A as White and Michalewicz take on bigger roles.

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Coach Craig Slaughter on the 2024 season

"We have a pretty good group coming back (this season). As a coach, you really want to push them and you want them to get exposed to and see things you're good at or things you need to improve, so for the schedule, we really want to see competitive games. I'm super thrilled we got 10 games and a ton of them are going to be very competitive games. We're going to need to play our rear ends off to have a chance to win some of those, and that's fun. ... We're going from a different offense that was under center and very ball control oriented. Well, now it's going to be a different scheme. We want to get some of our athletes on the perimeter and get them in space, so it may be conducive to some big plays."

2024 Schedule

Week 1 – Wall at Mason, 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 30

Week 2 – Brownwood at Wall, 7 p.m. Friday, Sep. 6

Week 3 – Jim Ned at Wall, 7 p.m. Friday, Sep. 13

Week 4 – Monahans at Wall, 7 p.m. Friday, Sep. 20

Week 5 – Wall at Sweetwater, 7 p.m. Friday, Sep. 27

Week 6 – Idalou at Wall, 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4

Week 7 – Wall at Merkel, 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11

Week 8 – Coahoma at Wall. 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18

Week 9 – Wall at Grape Creek, 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25

Week 10 – OPEN

Week 11 – Stanton at Wall, 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8

Paul Witwer covers high school sports and Angelo State University sports for The San Angelo Standard-Times. Reach him at sports@gosanangelo.com. Follow him on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, @Paul_Witwer.

This article originally appeared on San Angelo Standard-Times: West Texas Huddle: Wall football looking forward to change in 2024