Staff file photo / R. Michael Semple Liberty’s Dawaun Moody attempts to break a tackle during a game against Southeast last season.

LIBERTY — For two years, Dom Prologo was out of coaching. During the fall of 2023 and 2024, Prologo often attended or watched Liberty games, in large part because his daughter worked with the program as an athletic trainer.

The former Warren JFK head football coach, who led the Eagles to a 32-8 record and two state title appearances in three years, says he wasn’t initially eager to get back onto the sidelines. But the Liberty job, he admits, intrigued him.

“I’ve been around these kids. I see their faces. I saw that they wanted to win, and I just felt like if this job ever came open… I think I would apply for it,” Prologo said.

Following the resignation of Joe Simon, who went 19-23 in four seasons, Prologo applied and, during a January school district meeting, was officially hired as the Leopards’ new head coach.

Prologo said then that one of two things would happen once he and his staff began working with the players: the kids take to the changes, spurring an immediate turnaround; or “culture shock” because the changes are so different from what they had become accustomed to.

“Oh, no,” Prologo said, “it was a culture shock.”

“There was so much that needed to be done,” he said. “We have a little bit of a principle that I picked up from a coach years ago — he was an assistant with me at Canfield. And it’s called sweeping the corners, and that’s what these kids needed to understand. It’s not OK just to walk out on the field three minutes after practice starts with your helmet off, your shoulder pads undone, things like that … You need to go on the field five minutes before practice, ready to go. All the little things that needed to be done, those are the little things that turn into big things. And if you correct those little things, you sweep the corners.”

While Prologo says the Leopards began taking ownership of the process and holding each other accountable, it was a work in progress. And progress is often not linear, something the team found out the hard way throughout the summer.

Every Thursday, Prologo says, Liberty would be tasked with running 12 “perfect” 80-yard sprints, which included perfect stances, completing the sprint in the allotted time and then returning to the goal line in the allotted time to do it all over again.

The first week, the Leopards performed 28 sprints. The following week, seemingly getting the message, they did half as many. But over time, the number creeped back up into the 20s as the coaches maintained their high expectations.

“They needed to see what ‘perfect’ meant,” Prologo said. “I think they picked up on what we’re asking them to do, and if they don’t, the discipline is they’re going to have to do twice as many.”

Just like for his players, it will likely be a hard road ahead for Prologo to turn around a program that has not had a winning season since 2018.

But that’s why he took the job in the first place.

“The challenge, that’s what I got back into coaching for,” Prologo said. “[I’ve] got that fire burning again … We have a saying that my head coach Dick Angle used to say to us, and it was up in our weight room: ‘Those who stay will be champions.’

“The challenge of turning this program into a championship program, so you can stop all those schools that want to come in and poach our kids, and make our school the destination school, not the school the one that people want to flee.”

As for expectations, it’s fair to say Prologo’s are as high as they can get.

“The expectation has to be that we’re going to go out and we’re going to win every ball game we play. And we do expect to do that,” Prologo said. “Now, are we going to be able to do that? I don’t know. Our schedule is very challenging. We’ve got teams like Kennedy that played to Week 12 or 13 last year. We have teams like Garrettsville Garfield, a perennial playoff team that’s a dominant team in this league. We have Crestview, who’s had unbelievable success for the last 10 years that I can even think of, maybe even longer than that.

“So with those types of teams — the physicality that Brookfield brings now — our expectation is going to be to go out and win 10 ball games. Are we good enough to do that? Time will tell.”

OFFENSE

It doesn’t take much thought to figure out what Liberty plans to do offensively this year.

“Oh, we’re going to throw the ball 75 times a game,” Prologo quipped. “No, nothing changes. I’m very fortunate to inherit a team that has, in my opinion, the best running back in the tri-county area.”

Like last season, Dawaun Moody will be the player to watch when the Leopards’ offense takes the field. Moody technically started at quarterback as a sophomore in 2024, although he threw the ball only a few dozen times and had more than four times as many rushing yards as passing.

As a result, Prologo made the simple decision to move Moody to running back this season, while retaining his importance to the offense.

“We’re going to run the ball and then we’re going to throw when needed,” Prologo said. “We’re going to be a physical running football team.”

Succeeding Moody at quarterback will either be senior Tyson Lawrence-Watson or freshman Prince Lard, who competed for the position over the summer. Joining them in the backfield will be Moody, Dyionn Tutwiler and fullback Richie Sly, the latter of whom may share time with others in a “committee” of sorts.

Two upperclassmen, Xavier McDougald and Enrico Jnpierre-Greene, are expected to contribute some as targets in the pass game.

And to block for Moody and Co., Prologo said he plans to rely on senior center Joziah Hill, who the coach said had a great summer and showed “a lot of leadership,” as well as fellow senior Justin Nelms Jr. and juniors Terrill Blackshear and Tameron March, who were “pushed” by freshman Davon ‘DJ’ Jefferson this offseason.

Completing the line, Prologo said, is a big player with a secret name.

The other tackle is ‘Big Baby’ Perry,” Prologo said. “I can’t give you his first name. I promised him I would not say his name .. because he’s scared to death that our kids are going to hear his first name.

“I told him, I said, ‘Our announcer is not going to say ‘Big Baby on the tackle.’ So, everyone’s going to know your name.’ And he goes, ‘I’m going to talk to the announcer, too. I’m going to see if I can get that.'”

Prologo said Perry is around 6-foot-3 and 300 pounds, but can move like a player much smaller.

“So I’m letting him go with the ‘Big Baby’ Perry thing,” Prologo said.

DEFENSE

Perry is expected to also factor in on the defensive line as part of Liberty’s potentially formidable front, which will likely be composed of Jefferson, Blackshear, McDougald, Tutwiler, Sly, March, Taeshawn Williams and Caiden Morgan.

At the back end will be Moody, who Prologo said “belongs” as a defensive back, as well as JnPierre-Green, Shakir Thomas and Kamron Coleman, all of whom Prologo remarked had a great camp.

As a whole, though, the coach admitted that while fast, the Leopards’ defense — or the offense — might not be very exciting or innovative early on. But that is by design, he says.

“There’s so much learning that has to go on on both sides of the ball. It’s so much learning,” Prologo said. “So offensively, we’re going to look very vanilla offensively, and defensively, we’re going to look very vanilla too. I’m really big on that ‘K.I.S.S.’ principle — keep it simple, stupid. Well, that’s where I’m at right now. I’m looking at this saying, OK, we have to keep things very simplistic on offense and defense until our kids catch up, and then maybe we can start adding from there. So we’re going to look very simplistic on both sides of the ball, and we’re going to let our kids just go be football players.”

SPECIAL TEAMS

Prologo indicated that special teams, primarily the roles of kicker and punter, would be decided by a competition as opening week approached.

“We’ve had three kickers working out with us, and I think they’re all doing a great job … We’re, going to find out — maybe one of them will be a kickoff specialist and one will be an extra-point specialist, but we’ve got three of them right now that are that are doing a great job. And I couldn’t give you a name of who’s going to win that job,” Prologo said.

“And the same thing with our punter. I couldn’t tell you who’s going to win that job. We have two or three kids that are doing it right now.”