Physical examinations

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(Misty Watson/The Daily Citizen) Dalton High senior tight end Will Erwin turns to catch a pass as the Catamounts run through plays earlier this week at the school. The Catamounts will get their first chance of 2012 to see how they look against another team at 7 tonight as they welcome Adairsville to Harmon Field for a preseason scrimmage.

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August 16, 2012

Physical examinations

Coaches hope to learn more from scrimmages

By Devin Golden devingolden@daltoncitizen.com The Dalton Daily Citizen Thu Aug 16, 2012, 07:10 AM EDT

There was a consensus among local high school football coaches this week when asked about their upcoming preseason scrimmages.

These games will have several assets, but one of the best is that their teams will look across the line and see a jersey not their own.

The GHSA permits teams just one intersquad scrimmage each year, and with the regular season quickly approaching — Dalton kicks off Aug. 24, with other teams doing so the following Friday — coaches and players are understandably eager to measure their preseason progress. Coahulla Creek scrimmaged last week, but for other area teams the next two days will offer their chance to see what they’ve accomplished in practice.

Dalton hosts Adairsville at 7 tonight at Harmon Field. On Friday night, Christian Heritage plays at Chattanooga Central, North Murray hosts Model, Northwest Whitfield is at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe and Southeast Whitfield hosts Murray County. All of those games kick off at 7:30 p.m.

Dalton coach coach Matt Land was succinct.

“We’re tired of hitting one another,” he said. “We want to start hitting another team.”

Murray County coach John Hammond and Northwest coach Josh Robinson backed up those thoughts.

“Kids are itching to hit someone besides themselves,” Hammond said. “We get to go up against competition.”

Said Robinson, “It’s going to be good to hit somebody else. Kids have been beating and banging on each other for three weeks. I can tell at practice they are tired of hitting each other.”

Southeast’s Sean Gray has certain things he’ll be looking for Friday.

“I want to see how physical we are, No. 1,” Gray said. “We’ve been hitting ourselves and everything on both sides of the ball. I want to see how much emotion and confidence we play with. We just had a coaches meeting, and that’s what I told them. ‘We need to execute offensively. We can’t jump offsides, fumble snaps and have penalties.’ We haven’t done that in the offseason, but now we face a different team.”

But the scrimmages serve other purposes, too. Hammond knows which puzzle pieces he has, but he hasn’t figured out where they all go yet.

“Varsity is going to play three quarters and JV will play the fourth,” he said. “We’ll rotate some kids and see where we’re at. We’re on schedule for finding kids who will start for us. We just want to make sure they are in the right spot.

“The second thing is to build some depth, especially on the defensive side, because I’d like to go eight deep up front. The third biggest thing is ... we’re in a new offense. Southeast is a 4-4, cover-3 team, and we’ve been going against that since the spring because we’re a 4-4, cover-3 team. So we want to see how far along we are on offense.”

Christian Heritage coach Preston Poag has his puzzle pieces in place, but he wants to see how they handle going against a group of larger pieces.

“This school is bigger than us,” Poag said. “In seven-on-seven, you get to see a lot of skill guys, but this scrimmage there will be a lot more of the linemen.

“It’s also to see some guys that I haven’t seen much of. I’ll see how some of the younger guys do.”

Robinson and North Murray coach David Gann will also likely make some decisions about whom they’ll count on during the season based on what they see Friday.

“Really on the offensive line, it hasn’t been determined yet. It’s down to seven guys,” Robinson said.

“(Name) any position, and we have competitions going on. On the defensive line, we rotate people in. We have competitions going on not just for the starting spots, but for rotation positions. ... So we’re going to weight it pretty heavily. It won’t be the end of the world, win or lose, but it still will be the chance to go out there and perform under the lights when it isn’t your friend anymore.”

Said Gann, “Kind of like most coaches, we’re just looking to evaluate our kids in game situations. It’s different when you turn the lights on and have someone across from you. There are some players who are still fighting for starting positions.”

The Mountaineers had an intrasquad scrimmage canceled last week because of inclement weather. But that doesn’t necessarily heighten the importance of Friday’s game, said Gann, whose expectations are the same as most other area coaches.

“That was just a thing to do to let the kids get down on the game field,” Gann said. “We were at Tennessee Tech (for camp earlier this month) and had intrasquad scrimmages every night and every morning.

“When you see different folks, it’s a different bird.”

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