Year 2 of the Barrett Trotter Era at Bayside Academy will bring a new classification as the Admirals are heading back down to Class 3A due to enrollment.

Trotter said the coaching staff put in some extra time this offseason to learn up on their new opponents who might not be so new to some of the more experienced staff members.

“I know some of them have kind of done what they've done, and their offensive scheme probably hasn't changed since the last time Coach (Mark) Lasseter or some other guys that were here coaching saw them,” Trotter said as part of Gulf Coast Media Day. “At the same time, knowing some of these are new coaches, new teams and new schemes, we’re getting tape, watching film, researching and putting a plan together, trying to get a little bit of a head start going into the fall so it's not all brand new.”

The whole offseason has been not-brand-new with players understanding the expectations of Trotter and his staff. Junior linebackers Monroe Partin and Billy Neill were benefactors of some of the position tweaks the staff has made this second offseason at Bayside Academy.

“These guys have a great understanding offensively and defensively, what we're asking to do. A great foundation was built last year so coming in this summer, I felt like we've progressed leaps and bounds,” Trotter said.  “With me being new, there were a lot of question marks I had about who our players were, what positions they needed to play in and what positions they could fit in best. Last year, Billy was playing our boundary defensive end, our buck position. This year he's going to be playing Mike linebacker. Monroe was playing some Mike last year but he's going to be playing Will linebacker this year and both these guys are extremely impressive with the way they play and practice every single day.”

Both understood they’d be looked upon to carry a larger role this year, but Partin said they feel prepared.

“We're definitely going to play a bigger role than we did last year. But I feel like we did play a big role (last year), and some of those senior guys helped us with that,” Partin said. “Now coming up to our junior year, I think that we're going to have to step up and that we're going to have to take initiative on the team.”

“Stepping up is a big part of our defense because our team's young. We have a lot of juniors coming in, and they're going to play important roles on the team,” Neill said. “Stepping back into linebacker is a big part with making the calls and everything.”

With some nasty pieces around the linebackers, Trotter said the Admirals' defensive front should be able to take care of business.

“I think our front is going to be an incredible front seven, not just with these with these guys at linebacker, but our D-line I think is going to be pretty vicious this year,” the head coach said. “Really excited about who we have coming and the plan that we'll have moving forward throughout the season, to be able to adapt and change defensively to whatever we're getting offensively.”

The linebackers also laid out their expectations of how they want to be viewed by their opponents.

“We definitely want people to be scared of us,” Neill said. “I want people know we hit hard, know we play hard and just know that on every single play, they can't take a play off or they're going to pay for it.”

“I think we're smarter than most linebackers. You have to have brains, have to be able to read that offense to track where you're going,” Partin said. “I think that we are bigger than some of the other guys, so I think we’ve got an upper hand on that, and we can hit hard.”

On the other side of the ball, SMU commit Miles Uter and Ladd Powers will hold down the tight end spot with Caid Lyons one of the featured returning running backs that will look to take advantage of blocks from an experienced offensive line.

“Brennan Yamane, coming back from IMG who was a longtime Bayside guy, really excited to have him back,” Trotter said. “Returning a front offensive line that I think is going to be really productive for us. We've got a handful of guys who have played a lot of football on the offensive line, so we're excited. We're going to be an attacking offense at all times, we're going to stretch the defense horizontally and vertically throughout the entire game and make them play sideline to sideline.”

While it’s easy to say a championship is the end-of-season goal, Trotter established a road map of how Bayside Academy can go about it.

“We talk about chasing perfection with excellence,” Trotter said. “We are not perfect. We won't ever be perfect, but if we're chasing perfection with excellence, we're going to get pretty dang close. And hopefully that will turn out with Ws in our column and lead us where we want to go which is the last game of the season.”

Check out the Admirals' full interview as part of the third-annual Gulf Coast Media Day here.