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🏈 New Leadership: Richard Morgan takes over as Niceville’s head football coach and starts spring practice on April 28.
📅 Key Dates: Fall sports practice begins July 29, preseason games are set for August 12–17, and the regular season starts August 23.
🛠️ Building for the Future: Morgan emphasizes developing local talent and installing a new offensive system with a focus on long-term growth.
There’s a new head ball coach in town – and he wants to continue Niceville’s postseason football streak to a quarter century.
Niceville Head Football Coach Richard Morgan swept into town April 21 and has already begun to supervise workouts and plan for the future.
April 28 marks the first day of spring practice for the Eagles under their new coach.
While the Eagles have some continuity from previous years thanks to several veterans in the starting lineup – what exactly the team looks like on the field may take some time to appear. “I don’t really know what’s going to change, because I haven’t even evaluated the kids yet. I’ll know a little bit more after spring ball. We’re going to run our offense, our defense, and it may look some things may look similar to the past, some things may be brand new, but it’s going to be the offense that we bring in. So after I evaluate the kids, I’ll have a little bit better idea of how we’re going to operate, like, like, I tell everybody, it’s, it’s players over plays anyway,” Coach Morgan said.
Coach Morgan took the job in Niceville, he says, because of the small-town atmosphere and winning tradition the Eagles have. He acknowledged the ups and downs of his last stop at Marietta High School in Georgia. He won a state championship but had a tough couple of seasons before departing. Ricky White III, a player on his state championship team, was just drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the seventh round. “we played the toughest schedule in the state of Georgia, and we just, you know, we had some and we want to say championship, and then after that, we had, you know, little bit dip in talent, and we played the toughest schedule in the state. And sometimes things work out. Sometimes they don’t, but I’ve been doing this for 26 years as a head coach. Overall, I’ve learned a lot of lessons over 26 years, but the overall record speeds for itself,” Morgan said.
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Morgan did not say whether or not the team would see the number of transfers into NHS seen in the last couple of years, but he did emphasize his desire to train up Niceville-area kids to man the roster spots on the varsity squad. ” I already made a decision that I’m going to focus on the kids that are at Niceville and the kids that are zoned for Niceville. I’m going to focus on developing them, and then if other people see it as an attractive place that they want to, you know, come to or apply to come to, that’ll be on them, but I’m going to focus on what we do here every day. I’m going to focus on this community, building these building these young men up into great people, and that that speaks for itself,” Morgan added.
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Morgan will report to the man at the top of the search committee and longtime Niceville principal Charlie Morello. Morello expressed excitement about the new hire and looked forward to the future with Morgan at the helm. “I know he’s hit the ground running. I can, you know, when I’m outside at lunch duty, I can hear him and the rest of coaches in the weight room fifth period and see him down the field getting after it. So he definitely didn’t, didn’t step in, step into it tentatively, because I think he does feel a little pressed for time with spring practice,” Morello said.
Like most new coaches, Morello noted that he and the team will need to gel on the offensive side of the ball, especially. Technical glitches will need to be ironed out. “even if coaches are running the same 10 plays, everybody calls it a little differently and uses different terminology. So there’s just going to be a big learning curve this spring with the installation of a new offensive system. I would predict he’ll probably keep it a little vanilla, just get the basic stuff in now and then, just to continue to expand with the more time that he has with the players and coaches. Summer is going to be critical for him,” Morello added.
While Niceville has not released its 2025 schedule – there are still a couple of dates Eagles fans will want to keep on the calendar as we approach Summer break.
The first official day of practice for all Fall sports will take place on July 29.
All preseason classic games must take place between August 12 and 17th.
The first regular season game day is Friday, August 23.
State championship games will take place December 11-14.
