The Florala Wildcats decided it was time to make a change with the football program as they hired Scott Mason to take over at the helm for the 2017 season.

“We are excited about bringing in a coach like Scott,” Florala principal Max Whitaker said. “He has a lot of experience coaching at different levels and we think he is going to be a lot of enthusiasm to our program.”

Mason is known around the state as the founder of the Thunder and Lighting spread offense, and he plans to bring it with him to Florala.

“Thunder and Lighting is my brand of the spread offense,” Mason said. “It’s sort of a hybrid between the old air-raid, west-coast and single-wing offenses. It’s unique and we have had a lot of success with it.”

The system is something Mason said will be easy for the kids to learn.

“We have it very simplified,” Mason said of his offense. “We will control the tempo. We can play fast or slow it down depending on the situation. It’s going to be easy for them to learn. We basically are putting the cookies on the bottom shelf for the kiddos to reach.”

Mason, who served as the Cintronelle offensive coordinator this past season, comes to Florala for the second head coaching job in his career.

From 2007 to 2009, Mason was at the helm of the Fruitdale Pirates.

In three years at Fruitdale, Mason led the Pirates to a 15-16 record including two playoff appearances.

“The 0-8 season last year intrigued me,” Mason said. “It was a similar situation when I took over at Fruitdale. If the kids at Florala will buy in and drink the Kool-Aid, so to speak, the way the kids did at Fruitdale we will be al lright.”

On Wednesday morning, Mason met with his future team for the first time.

“I was pleasantly surprised when I meet the players this morning (Wednesday),” Mason said. “I was very pleased with the enthusiasm and some of players’ sizes. I will be honest, I expected much worse.”

Mason said that he is excited about this new opportunity.

“I’ve wanted to be a head coach again, but I’ve been staying close by my son while he is in college so that I could help him out,” Mason said. “He is getting ready to graduate now. So I figured it was time that I do my own thing again. I’ve been picky on where I wanted to go, but I just really hit it off with Mr. Whitaker. This team really intrigued me, and I believe that we will work very hard to bring a winner back to Florala High School.”

Mason replaces Brad Rhodes, who spent three seasons as the Wildcats head football coach and went 8-19.