Dan Morgan
Blythewood High School announced Monday that Dan Morgan would be taking over as head football coach for the Bengals’ program. Morgan takes over the reins after serving as the defensive coordinator for the past five seasons.
“Dan (Morgan) has proved his commitment to the success of our football program. He’s done an outstanding job as defensive coordinator, and I believe he will do an even better job as head coach,” said Blythewood Principal Keith Price.
Morgan has more than 16 years of coaching experience at the high school level, including stints at Brookland-Cayce, Waccamaw, Northwestern and West Oak. Blythewood will be his first job as head football coach.
The position was vacated when Reggie Kennedy left to take a job at Sumter High School as athletic director and head football coach last week. Blythewood athletic director Vince Lowry said he believes the school made a good decision in hiring Morgan.
“In order to continue in the right direction we feel like Dan is the right person to lead us,” Lowry said.
Lowry talked about Morgan’s dedication to the program in the last five years going through tough times and good times.
“Coach Morgan was a part of the process to turn things around,” Lowry said. “One of the things we wanted to do was continue the continuity of the program.”
Continuity is a growing theme with the Bengals’ football program as they will keep the staff intact. Last year’s defensive line coach, Preston Thorne, will take over as defensive coordinator. Thorne has been at Blythewood for the past seven seasons and knows the program.
Morgan spent this past season in the press box because it gave him the advantage of a better view to quickly diagnose plays, but he will now be back on the sidelines in order to better manage the game and players.
The offensive scheme will change slightly as the Bengals make the transition from the spread offense to the air-raid offense. With the loss of all three quarterbacks to graduation, it’s a perfect time to change the offensive scheme. The air-raid offense is a passing concept that revolves around short-intermediate passes off of quick release and three-step drops. There are a lot of pre-snap reads and the scheme will try to stretch defenses horizontally as opposed to vertically. In addition to being the head coach, Morgan will also call offensive plays and believes his scheme is the right fit for his personnel.
“I know, with a school this size and the players we have, the air-raid can be very successful,” he said.
