Falkville High School’s football program is headed in a new direction after being reclassified from 2A to 1A and getting a new head coach.

The Blue Devils will be competing in Region 6 under the leadership and guidance of Joel Schrenk, a former assistant coach at Austin and a head coach with five years of experience at two different Tennessee high schools.

Falkville’s regional opponents in 2012 will consist of Addison, Ragland, Meek, Appalachian, Sumiton Christian, Shades Mountain, Southeastern and Jefferson Christian, which has opted not to field a team and forfeit a game each to other region 6 teams. Non-region opponents will be Danville and Donoho.

Schrenk coached the Blue Devils at eight scrimmage sessions last spring with 40 players participating. They opted not to go outside to play a spring game but played an intrasquad game instead. The team has already scheduled a seven-on-seven play date in July and expects to see action in other meets this summer.

“For me spring workouts was about getting to know the players and find out what kind of talent we have,” Schrenk said. “Establishing a strong work ethic and building a winning attitude were other priorities.”

“I’m a spread guy,” he added. “So I needed to see if we have the potential to spread the field and pass or spread the field and run.”

Schrenk said he is implementing a summer weight room program that is designed to help his players gain weight and strength.

“We’ll have the weight room open mornings and evening three days a week,” he pointed out. “That way the kids will have some flexibility when to work out if they’re working jobs during the summer.” “Hopefully we’ll have two great months of workouts and we’ll be able to reap the benefits next fall.

Schrenk comes to Falkville from Cannon County High School in Woodbury, Tenn., where he served as head coach for three years. He also was head coach at Clarksville Northwest two years before that and has 13 years of experience as an assistant coach.

He and his wife Donna, who is self-employed, have been married 21 years. He has a stepson, Michael Taylor and wife Ashley of Montgomery and two step-grandchildren, Trenton, 10, and Adalyn, three, and a daughter, Tyanna Herron and husband Ben of Trinity.