A York County football team hasn’t been Region 3-5A champion since 2019. What’s ahead?

Region 3-5A has four York County programs: Clover, Fort Mill, Nation Ford and Rock Hill. Each is in a different stages of development, and with those different stages come different stories.

A school from York County hasn’t won that region since 2019. Clover was region champion that year.

Here’s a look at all what’s going on at all four schools:

Clover Blue Eagles

How they finished: 6-5, 4-1; lost in first round of the state playoffs to Dorman

After seven years at Lexington High School in Columbia, Perry Woolbright is returning to where it all started for him.

Woolbright played high school football at Clover, where he graduated in 2001. His father, Marty, was the head coach of Clover’s football team from 1993-1997.

Woolbright said he wants to build a successful program for the Blue Eagle faithful, but he also wants to be realistic about expectations, heading into his first year.

“Clover’s a prideful community,” Woolbright said. “They take pride in our athletics. Every place wants to win a state championship every year, but that’s just not realistic. That’s not going to happen, but they want a product on the field that’s going to make them proud.

“Knowing this is a blue-collar community, they want kids on the field that’s going to play the same way. I take pride in bringing that to Clover and us doing the right thing, representing our community.”

Woolbright, who has been with the team since February, said the transition from former coach Brian Lane’s system to his own has been rather smooth.

Woolbright said he plans to support the wide-open Blue Eagle passing attack with a better downhill, power running game. He said the offense is going to be fine with slow, methodical drives and looking for big play opportunities.

“I think (our performance at) our jamboree was a good example,” Woolbright said. “Our first drive of the game was six minutes and 38 seconds. And we’re going to have a lot of those this year, where it’s a long drive and we’re getting a third down and then getting the first down or we get it to a fourth-and-short and then getting the first down. Early on, we want to be a team that takes what they give us, and then as the game goes on, that’s when we open things up for us and we get our big plays.”

Defensively, Woolbright said his front seven will play a big role this season.

He’s planning on his defensive linemen and linebackers stopping runs and short passes, forcing longer throws that will be easier for his defensive backs to break up or intercept.

However, the coach the most important thing is that the team plays hard.

“We want to give ourselves a chance,” Woolbright said. “We want to say at the end of a game that we did everything we could to give ourselves chances. And we don’t want to be a team that beats ourselves.

“I’ll always tell everybody, all you want to do is get in the playoffs. Once you’re in the playoffs, everybody’s on an equal field. You got just as much of a chance as anybody, and you never know what’s going to happen in the playoffs.

“All it takes is one or two upsets here or there. I’ve been a fourth-seed (region team) and made it to the state championship; I’ve been a third-seed (region team) and made it to the third, fourth round a couple of times. All you want is that chance to get yourself positioned in the playoffs and get that equal playing field. Wherever the ball bounces, let it go.”

Nation Ford Falcons

How they finished: 4-7, 3-2; lost in first round of state playoffs to Spartanburg

Nation Ford head coach Michael Allen had one word for the team’s struggles last season: injuries.

He said the rash of injuries that hit the Falcons last season was the worst he’s seen in his 39 years coaching football.

However, those injuries led to younger players getting playing time. Allen said he hopes that bodes well for his team heading into his 13th season at the helm.

“We’re excited about where we’re headed,” Allen said. “We’re excited about where we are right now. We’re a little impatient. We’re not about waiting. Our goals are the same every year: to compete for a region title and get ourselves in the playoffs and do what we do.”

One younger player who Allen is counting on is junior offensive and defensive linemen Savyion Drayton.

Drayton said experience from last season will keep guys from being overwhelmed by the big moments when they’re called on.

“We have a whole bunch of young talent,” Drayton said. “Being able to play varsity (last year) at a high level against these big teams such as Northwestern and Blythewood lets all of them be able to see everything that happens (at the varsity level), and know that they can just keep on pushing. And with the younger guys, by their senior years, they’ll be able to know the ins-and-outs of what’s going to be played out here.”

Nation Ford is still a young team: the Falcons have 12 seniors on the roster.

Allen said he feels this team has the ability to go far but acknowledges that it will be a week-by-week process.

“This team has a high ceiling,” Allen said. “They got a long way to go; they got a lot of improvement to make, but I think their ceiling is very high. So we’ll just take it one week at a time.

“It all started in January. So it’s just a matter of how well we gel. Our aspirations do not change, and we look to the following year and the year after that, we’re just trying to build a steady program. Year-in and year-out, competing at a very high level.”

Rock Hill Bearcats

How they finished: 2-9, 1-4; lost to Gaffney in first round

Heading into his 10th year leading the Bearcats, head coach Bubba Pittman is looking for his defense to make major improvements.

Last season, the Bearcats allowed 30 or more points in eight games and more than 44 points on average.

Pittman said his defensive unit is playing with more aggression.

“I think just being physical (with) tackling,” Pittman said. “I didn’t think we did a real good job last year of tackling. I thought the guys did a real good job (at the jamboree).

“There was one missed tackle that I saw on the sideline that I felt like we should have made, but other than that, I thought our kids rallied to the football. I thought they wrapped up. They came with force. They ran their feet through tackles. Those are all the things we harped on over and over and over last year.

“We’re still not where we want to be. We want to be more physical. We want to have more hats to the ball and just continue to get better. But there was definitely some improvement there. We just got to keep getting better a little bit every day and let the chips fall where they may.”

Quarterback Matthew Wilson will lead the Rock Hill High offense.

The Appalachian State commit is heading into his fourth season as a starter. Pittman said he expects to see a lot more composure out of his star quarterback.

“We know what (Wilson) brings to the table,” Pittman said. “We’re looking for a big year out of him being in a second-year in this offense. He’s been in two offenses since he’s been at Rock Hill High: under my offense and under Coach (Michael) Byus’s offense. So (Wilson is) a lot more comfortable this year. I think you’ll see some explosive play-making abilities out of him this year, because he is more comfortable. So I’m expecting a big year from him.”

Fort Mill Yellow Jackets

How they finished: 0-10, 0-5

Going winless isn’t what any team envisions heading into a season, but it happened to Fort Mill.

The Yellow Jackets did have some close calls: a 22-17 loss to Chester in Week Two and seven-point losses to both Rock Hill and Spring Valley.

Coach Rob McNeely, heading into his sixth season with the team, said the things his team needs to work on are obvious.

On offense, it’s controlling the clock and ball security. Fort Mill scored more than 20 points twice last year and never scored more than 28.

“We lost the turnover battle big time last year,” McNeely said. “And that affects both sides of the ball. When you can’t move the ball on offense or you’re struggling, it makes your defense play more snaps per game. We’ve just got to do a better job of limiting the turnovers and offense controlling the ball.”

This will be the second year Fort Mill runs the speed option offense. It’s designed to get skilled players into open space. To achieve this, the offense will rely heavily on its offensive line.

“Obviously, to get this thing going, our offensive line has got to move people,” McNeely said. “The games are won up front -- offensive line, defensive line. We got to control the line of scrimmage as long as we can. We’re not asking maybe undersized offensive linemen to block 300-pound defensive linemen for (more than three seconds). They just got to be a thorn in somebody’s side, so we can get the ball vertical.

On defensive, McNeely said the team must limit big plays.

However, the defense did improve over the course of the season, and if it opens the season the way it ended, that would be an early positive sign.

“We’ve got to cause some turnovers, and we’ve got to get off the field on third downs,” McNeely said. “That was a main point of emphasis coming out of last year. Third-and-long situations and (opposing) teams picking up first downs or getting a big chunk on first down and not having to really work for first downs.

“We started getting better as the season progressed, playing good team defense. The defense we play is a big play defense, so we got to cause some turnovers and get the ball back into our offense’s hands.”

This story was originally published August 25, 2023 at 8:50 AM.