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CHOCOWINITY, N.C. — New Southside High School football coach Andrea “Coach Q” Quinerly is a busy man these days.

He teaches. He’s the athletic director. He’ll be coaching the boys and girls track team before too long, too. Just a couple of weeks ago, he took on duties as the football coach.

He’s busy with each job but you can tell he’s thinking hard about the next football season. He’s got a number of plays drawn up on a dry erase board that hangs in his room. We won’t spill the beans on his plans, but you can expect to see a lot from the Seahawks in 2025.

“Well, it has been business as usual,” Quinerly said. “I would just say it’s a little more of that business, because I am a football guy, so being a defensive coordinator and assistant head coach, it’s always football business.

“Now I’m just looking at it from a different aspect. I’m looking at it more from the managerial aspect of it too.”

Quinerly touts his 24 years working on the defensive side of the ball. He spent a long period of his time at Greene Central High School, working with big names like Spence Grantham, JimBob Bryant and Kenneth Grantham. Then he came over to Southside to help then head coach Jeff Carrow.

Now, he’s the man in charge and he’s got some ideas to breathe new life into the Seahawks.

“I went through a process of, it was a lot of late-exit meetings, where I kind of met with each individual football player,” Quinerly said. “I wanted to get their feel, I wanted the kids to feel like they’re really invested. Because when you’re investing in something, and you’re putting your time in it, and your process, and it’s your ideas, you tend to do a little better at it.

So I’ve been doing a lot of that, talking with assistant coaches, talking with the players on the other end.”

With the Christmas break and basketball season, plans will be put into place slowly and in accordance with the football offseason. When it’s time, the big changes will come.

“We’re gonna spread the field, we’re gonna use every inch of the football field,” Quinerly said. “So we’re gonna have a spread offense, that’s our biggest difference. We’re trying to put as many athletes on the field at one time as we can.

“We feel the spread will help us achieve that. And just preparing for what I hope to be a big difference. And right now, we’ve just been preparing for the spring already.”

Quinerly hopes all these steps will lead to progress and a good start to the 2025 season when August rolls around.

“It helps a bunch to know these kids already and to know what I’m walking into, know their gifts, know their weaknesses,” Quinerly said. “So yeah, that’s a tremendous help when putting together a new offense or anything, a new defense or anything else. It’s just a blessing to already have been here and settled here.

“They know me and I know them, and we can help each other.”