SWJCFC MEDIA DAY | Fired-up Taylor ready to put Navarro’s Bulldogs back in title game
TYLER – Navarro coach Ryan Taylor was the final coach to speak – just before lunch – on Southwest Junior College Football Conference media day on Thursday at Hollytree Country Club.
He also had the shortest distance to walk to the podium: he was sitting right by it.
And the food was in the next room.
Two plus two didn’t equal four, but 2+2+2 sure equaled six.
“Good to see everybody again,” the former Tyler Junior College defensive lineman said. “Just to echo all these coaches, fine coaches up here that do a great job with all of their programs – this is a first-class event. Thank you to Hollytree and all the folks who helped put this together. It’s always great, and the food’s always good, too.”
That drew laughter from the crowd, who had gotten used to it, after addresses from Trinity Valley’s Sherard Poteete, Cisco’s Charlie Rizzio, and the always-entertaining Willie Gooden of Kilgore College.
Taylor, the Denison native second-youngest coach in the league (only Tyler coach Tanner Jacobson is younger), will be in his third season at Navarro, but his fourth season in the league. He was actually the head coach at Cisco in the spring 2021 (2020 / COVID season) and led Cisco to an 11-5 record and a No. 3 ranking in the final national poll that year, a pretty fine achievement.
Last year, Taylor and his staff guided Navarro’s Bulldogs to a regular season win over Kilgore College and got the ‘Dogs back to the conference championship game. But they couldn’t upset KC in the title game, as KC avenged the loss, claimed a second straight conference title and went on to the NJCAA top four national title playoff.
Taylor began his career coaching on then-coach Danny Palmer’s staff at TJC, so he’s coached at three different programs in the conference.
“Congrats to coach Gooden and Kilgore on the championship, another fine job,” Taylor said, with a grin. “Everybody in here is trying to take them off the mountain. We’re gonna do our best. I think we have a lot of question marks on our football team. We’re gonna be young. I think we signed a good transfer class, but kind of like a lot of people have said – you don’t know. We’ll find out next week and the weeks after.
“There’s a lot of hard work to be put in. I’m excited about ‘em. I think there’s a lot of quality players in that group, but like I said, we’re going to find out.”
Taylor said he thought the incoming freshman class would really help the program, as well.
“We’ll see if they’re week-one guys, and more times than not, they’ll be week three-or-four guys,” he said.
The Bulldogs have about 30 sophomores returning for 2024, although Taylor didn’t want to go into names.
“There are still some guys in that group that didn’t get a lot of playing time that are going to be asked to have some significant roles this year,” he said.
The Bulldogs open the ’24 season on Aug. 31 at Garden City (Kan.), take Sept. 7 off and then begin conference play by hosting what looks to be, on paper, an improved Northeastern Oklahoma A&M (NEO) team after the Golden Norsemen went winless a year ago.
On Sept. 21, Navarro hosts Kilgore College in a rematch of the two hard-fought games last year, and then the Bulldogs make their first road trip of the season – four weeks in – on Sept. 28, to Brenham to face Blinn.
Navarro has another open date on Oct. 5, then hosts Trinity Valley on Oct. 12, is open AGAIN on Oct. 19 before traveling to Cisco on Oct. 26, hosts Tyler on Nov. 2, and finishes the regular season with a trip to Roswell, N.M. to play New Mexico Military on Nov. 9.
“Our quarterback room is probably our biggest question mark,” Taylor noted. “I don’t have a clue who’s gonna be the starter against Garden City. But I’m excited to find out. There’s four quality quarterbacks in that group. We’ll let camp fight itself out.”
“I’ll say this: best of luck to all these coaches. It’s gonna be another fight to the top of the mountain. I know it’s a great competitive league that we all represent. They all do a great job. It’s gonna be a dogfight all the way to the end. We’ll find out where we all sit. I’m sure it’ll be a logjam. That’s about all I had. I’ll be short and sweet – I’m about ready to eat lunch,” he said, to laughter from the group.