Mission Bay High School football coach Willie Matson doesn\u2019t take his team\u2019s offseason lightly, because it\u2019s the time of the year he can build on what he has. He can bring in new talent and rearrange the puzzle pieces. After going 13-0 last year and winning the CIF championship, Matson\u2019s puzzle has a bigger spotlight on it this year. “I am pretty excited because when you come off a year like that, the first thing everyone expects is a big dive bomb,” Matson said. “I am really excited because I don\u2019t think that will happen. I think we are going to be better than people think. And I think the kids realize that. Right now, we are putting together the pieces.” Every once in a while, an outside meddling hand thinks he or she can help Matson with his puzzle. Take left tackle Meekhiel Williams, for example. His estimated 6-foot-2-inch, 275-pound frame caught the attention of his peers and his teachers, who thought he was in the wrong sport. “I was a baseball player and everyone around school said, \u2018You should be a football player,\u2019” Williams said. “I never even thought of it because I didn\u2019t know how it would be on the field to get hit. One day I just came out here. A lot of teachers kept coming up to me too. So, I said I might as well try it out and it just stuck.” Another aspect of putting the pieces together is Matson\u2019s projections of where players fit the best. Chris Byrd is a prime example. He plays quarterback, wide receiver and cornerback. Byrd said he enjoys being a utility player. “Playing different positions makes you feel good because you know the team needs you,” Byrd said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mission Bay High School football coach Willie Matson doesn\u2019t take his team\u2019s offseason lightly, because it\u2019s the time of the year he can build on what he has. He can bring in new talent and rearrange the puzzle pieces. After going 13-0 last year and winning the CIF championship, Matson\u2019s puzzle has a bigger spotlight […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":294002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Putting the pieces together in the offseason","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}