WHITE HALL, Ark. — After a season in which White Hall only won four games, the Bulldogs' football program turned some heads in the offseason when they hired well-known head coach Daryl Patton.
"His name holds pretty great weight out here," said senior Savion Slater. "He's a great coach so he's going to get us right."
Patton's name certainly means a lot, especially in the state of Arkansas.
While the new Bulldogs head coach is most known for his illustrious head coaching career at Fayetteville High School (116 wins, 4 state titles), he's also had stops at Bryant, Bauxite, and most recently, Little Rock Southwest.
Still, entering his 27th straight season as a head coach in Arkansas, Patton's philosophy has remained consistent.
"I'm not changed. I'm the same person I was," Patton said. "We're going to come in, try to get the culture the way we want it. We're going to build on it every day... They'll be a sacrifice from everybody but at the end of the day there's going to be a reward from it."
Patton has been with the program for nearly eight months now and he explained how he's still working on building that culture.
"I'm still, trying to earn their [the players'} trust, and for some of them, I'm trying to get their trust from them, and vice versa. So it's a process. It doesn't happen overnight," he added.
While trust can only be built over time, Patton certainly has the respect of his team.
"Coach Patton, he's a great coach. He's coached multiple NFL players, he's won multiple state championships. It's great to have a coach that has such a great legacy, has a great history, knows how to win, and knows what it takes to win to be coaching us.," senior Ivan Armour said.
Patton bringing a winning recipe is desperately needed for a program that is coming off back-to-back four-win seasons. This year's team doesn't just want to be different than last year's, they are also focused on becoming more disciplined.
"There were so many games where we came up a yard short and we had 200 yards worth of penalties. I feel like coming up short like that taught us that discipline is probably the most important thing when it comes to winning football games," Armour noted.
This is something that Patton heavily emphasized as well in ways that he wants to see his new team improve in 2024.
"We want to be a disciplined bunch," Patton added. "The last couple of years we've not been as disciplined as we've needed to be, a lot of penalties in the worst times that's hurt us and so we're trying to be a little more disciplined football team."
The Bulldogs' first chance to prove their discipline will be on Friday, August 30, 2024, at 6A foe, Sheridan.