McGill-Toolen officially introduced David Faulkner as the 27th head football coach in school history on Monday morning.

Faulkner’s hire was originally announced earlier this month. He replaces Norman Joseph, who went 12-10 in two years as the Yellow Jackets’ head coach.

Faulkner is the eighth McGill head coach since 2004 following Steve Savarese, Keith Powell, Mike Dean, Bart Sessions, Caleb Ross, Earnest Hill and Joseph. Only Hill spent more than 3 years as head coach at the school. The current UAB assistant was head coach four seasons before leaving for a college job.

Faulkner is 67-56 in 11 years as a high school head coach. He spent one year at Alma Bryant, three years at Fairhope and seven at Enterprise. Most recently, he has been a part of Neal Brown’s off-the-field staff at West Virginia.

Here is how Faulkner addressed several key questions with the media following his introductory press conference.

How do you start the process here at McGill-Toolen?

“The number one thing is to lay out the vision for the program, which is to be a tough, physical football team that doesn’t beat itself and operates in that manner every day. I think the No. 1 things that we have to do after doing that is to try to get as much buy-in as we can. Anytime there’s change, sometimes there’s some hesitation in that, but I think our young men will jump on board and, the sooner that we get buy-in, the sooner we can start reaching our goals.”

What is one thing the McGill-Toolen football team and family should know about you?

“The thing you should know about me is I’m a tireless worker. I’m going to give everything I have to McGill-Toolen High School and this football program and this school, and we’re going to do everything we can to help our student-athletes be successful, not just on the football field but academically and spiritually, and we’ll do that with great honor and character.”

You’ve obviously coached in different parts of the state and seen different programs all over the country. Does anything separate the football that is played on the Gulf Coast particularly?

“I think there’s two things. No. 1, the Mobile area is athlete loaded. There’s a number of athletes here every year. You see a number of young men go play college football at all levels. The second thing is, I think, well-coached football. I think you have established football programs here that have great coaching staffs and great leadership and community support, and I think that’s one of the points that separates this area from a lot of the others.”

After being on the staffs at Troy and West Virginia, did you feel like you would come back and coach at the high school level one day?

“I thought at some point as I went through the college process, I missed leading the team, being in a leadership role and having a positive influence on young people. Obviously, you have to have the right opportunity in order to come back and do that and, after talking to the people at McGill-Toolen, I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to be able to run and operate a program that was in alignment with the way they would like it run and operated.”

How do you get this football program back to a championship level?

“I think you’ve got to have buy-in and then I think you’ve got to have great passion and energy on a daily basis. I think the young men in our program have to bring that, and they have this belief in themselves and this program that we can be what we were not too long ago. I think once we get those things in alignment and going, we’ll get what we want.”

What are your thoughts on competing in Class 6A, Region 1 with the likes of Theodore, Saraland, Spanish Fort, Blount and others?

“If you make the playoffs in this region, you’ll have a team that’s battle-tested and may have a chance to make a run. Our in-season schedule is going to be like trying to make a playoff run during the season. I think if we can qualify for the playoffs and we can get in, I think we’ll have a football team that’s ready to make a run toward a state championship.”

Are you officially on the job?

“My start date is Feb. 1, official start date. I’m in the building, I’m ready to go, and I’m excited about the opportunity.”

What is first on your to-do list?

“The first thing was when I presented my plan to win was to win the press conference. I tried to come in an establish a vision and the groundwork for how our program is going to be operated every day and try to make sure that everybody involved with McGill-Toolen understands what we’re about and what we stand for. So that was the number one thing. The next thing is to be able to get in front of the kids and able to build what our core values are and what our approach will be and what our culture will look like. Then just continue to develop them in the offseason and then we’ll move into spring ball and try to find out what schemes and players will give us the best opportunity to win football games on Friday night.”

What style of play will you employ?

“Traditionally I’ve been a heavy 10 personnel, four wideouts, one running back type of offense. I don’t know that’s necessarily who we’ll be here. Especially in high school football, you have to figure out who your best 11 are and what kind of schemes that’s conducive to and what that looks like. Defensively, same thing. I’ve had D-coordinators that use off fronts, even fronts, all these different type things. We’ll just have to figure out who our people are and what that looks like. But I think that will reveal itself as we go through spring ball and through the summer.”

Will you bring in additional coaches?

“We will. We’re still kind of in that process of what we have available to offer coaches and the positions we’re going to need from a coaching standpoint and just piece that all together. High school football is just not like coaching college football where you’re coaching all day. These guys will be in classes and have classroom responsibilities. We’ll just have to figure out what we have available and who we can put in those spots.”