Selma High School’s Leroy Miles led the Saints to a 7-4 record, which was the Saints best win total since 1994.

The Saints also made the postseason despite playing in arguably one of the state’s toughest regions.

“That’s a great honor but it couldn’t have been done with the assistant coaches and good football players,” Miles said.

Miles gave a lot of credit to his assistant coaches. Reggie Glover was the Saints’ offensive coordinator and Robert Wilkerson was the defensive coordinator for the Saints.

“The difference this year was coaching staff,” Miles said. “We had some coaches come in this year to join this stuff and having kids like Brantley who have been walking around the school and decided to come out and play football. That made a big difference.”

One thing Miles was proud of throughout the season was that his team rarely committed silly penalties because of their discipline, but the discipline showed off the football field too.

“If you looked at the record, we don’t have many discipline referrals,” Miles said.

Miles said making it mandatory for students to workout in the summer has been a big difference.

“I think with what we do and how we do things and holding our kids accountable to show up and make workouts and starting our workouts in January when we get back. mandatory workouts,” Miles said. “It leads right into spring practice and into summer.”

Miles is excited about the kids he has in the program as he looks forward to next season.

“I am so pleased and impressed with the kids that are in our program,” Miles said. “We have good kids. When I say good kids, I am talking about kids that go to class, they are disciplined, they do what you say do.”

The Saints defeated Greenville, Sidney Lanier, Sumter Central, Satsuma, Ellwood Christian, Southside and Citronelle on their way to the playoffs. Selma’s only losses were to playoff teams: Demopolis, Jackson, Saraland and Class 5A state champion Spanish Fort.

Miles is hoping that the program can contune to build on its success in 2014.

He’s hoping that Davian Brantley’s success in his first year of football in high school may encourage other students to give football a chance.

“I walk the halls every day and if a kid looks like he has some athletic ability, I ask him if he’s going to play football and the response has been tremendous,” Miles said.