GLASGOW — “You better get a good night’s sleep on Sunday night and be ready to go on Monday,” Ricky Wood said as he ended his remarks to the Glasgow High School football team.

Wood was ready to hit the ground running as he was introduced as the Scotties’ head football coach on Thursday afternoon in the GHS library, saying that “155 days, five hours and a few minutes” wasn’t a lot of time to get ready for the 2009 season.

“I’ve watched them play on film quite a bit and I just think we have a lot of potential,” Wood said at Thursday’s press conference. “Having said that, we’ve also got a lot of work to do. We’re really behind in terms of this spring. It’s just so important. That’s the reason I wanted to meet with them so we could hit the ground running on Monday. One hundred fifty-five days is not a lot when it comes down to preparations for our first game.”

Wood, a graduate of Tompkinsville High School and Western Kentucky University, said that Glasgow’s rich football tradition was one of the many things that lured him to the school. Wood comes to GHS after a five-year stint as the athletic director at Edmonson County.

“I’m honored to be the coach here,” Wood said. “It’s like I told the kids, what appealed to me as far as Glasgow High School was the rich tradition. I grew up watching coach (Coy) Meadows and coach Gupton and all those great players that they had. ... Again, Glasgow is just one of those schools that’s known for great teams around the state.

“I just think it has the resources, the backing here, the support that you need to make a state run with. I just think it’s a great opportunity. I’ve been out of it for a few years and when the opportunity came out I wanted to throw my hat in the ring. I’m excited to be the coach here.”

Wood was a highly successful head coach in stints at Warren Central and Edmonson County. He posted a 41-20 record in five years as the head coach at Central and was 46-24 in six years Edmonson’s head coach.

Wood led Central to the semifinals of the Class 4A playoffs in 2003, his last year as a coach. The Dragons fell 13-9 to state runner-up St. Xavier to end the season. Central advanced to at least the second round of the playoffs in all but one season under Wood.

The new Glasgow coach also built success at Edmonson. The Wildcats were 3-17 in the two seasons prior to Wood taking over in 1993. Edmonson went 7-4 in 1995, followed by double digit win totals in each of his last three seasons there. The Wildcats were 10-2 in 1998 before he left to take the head coaching job at Central.

Wood said this his staff was “almost complete” and should be announced in the upcoming week. He added that one of the draws to the position was the chance to work with former GHS head coach Coy Meadows.

“I’m really excited about getting coach Meadows back in the fold,” Wood said. “That was one of the big keys, I felt like, for me being here. I think of Joe Hood, I think of Dan Haley, Jack Morris, all the great coaches that I grew up trying to study from and Coy was one of those. To have a chance to work with him is just well beyond my dreams. I’m excited about that.”

Offensively Wood hopes to produced a balanced attack. He said that the Scotties would run some spread formations with some traditional offense.

“Obviously it all starts with a good running game,” he said. “You go to the state finals every year, you’ll see teams that run the football - St. X(avier), Danville, Fort Campbell. All those teams have a great running game. In high school, you never know what your quarterback is going to be able to do. I hope that we have the capabilities of maintaining a really good, balanced offense so that we can do both.

“My thing is, I’m going to take what talent we have and mold it into an effective, efficient offense. My philosophy is get the ball to your best athletes in space. We will be in the spread offense some. We will be in a tight offense some. But we’ll do whatever we can do best.”

Wood said the he hopes to produce an attacking style of defense.

“My teams have always been known to be strong defensively,” Wood said. “That’s where it all starts. I don’t care what sport it is, you have to play defense. That’s what we’ll start focusing on next week. We’re going to block, tackle, be really strong fundamentally. Hopefully we can have a real solid kicking game. All that plays a big part of it. There’s no doubt, when I start my day, the first thing we’ll start on is defense. If they can’t score, you can be in the game.”

Thursday’s announcement ended a tumultuous month that started on Feb. 16 when Warren Central assistant coach Jason Esters was named the Scotties’ head coach. Esters resigned two weeks later, saying “it was just a bad situation.” The position originally became open on Dec. 16 when Billy Lindsey resigned after four seasons as the head coach at Glasgow.

“I’m just looking forward,” Wood said. “Whatever got me to this point at this time is irrelevant to me. I’m just looking forward to practice and getting with the kids next week.”

Wood was one of at least five candidates that was originally interviewed for the position after Lindsey resigned.

The Scotties will start spring practice on Monday, hoping to erase the memory of an 0-11 record in 2008, the worst-ever season in the school’s long football history.

“I told them today, what happened last year doesn’t matter,” Wood said. “The only thing we can change is Monday. It starts Monday. It starts with a championship effort. That’s the first thing we’ll work on. I want them to learn how to practice. We’re going to practice with a fast tempo. It just all starts in practice.

“I’m really excited about it. Those kids are hungry. I guarantee they’ve got a bad taste in their mouth about their record also...We get a good coaching staff in place, we practice with a championship effort, eventually we’ll have good results.”