The Scrimmage

We took our band of 13 freshman football players into our scrimmage Saturday against Bemidji, who fielded a team of 48 freshman (they took their own bus).

I felt a little bit like King Leonidas leading his 300 Spartans against the might Persian army.

And we fared about as well too.

That's a little unfair. We gave up a few touchdowns, but our defense impressed me. We have a couple linebackers who love to hit. One of our middle linebackers was all over the place. I knew he was a stud when I was helping with a tackling drill last week when the freshmen were practicing with the varsity and this linebacker didn't hesitate to jump right into the drill against a senior.

Offensively, we fared a tad worse. We only scored once, on a bootleg pass option. We did drop a couple sure touchdown passes (that was one downside of the scrimmage: no one can catch the ball! What an irony. I have one of the most talented quarterbacks I have ever had, and I have no one to catch it!). Our running game got off to a rocky start as we fumbled on the first three plays. Finally, we got it going and had some success with counters and a few powers.

We should get a couple sophomores to help us out this week . . . and they'll be greatly appreciated. A few of my offensive lineman were really sucking wind by the end of the scrimmage. You can tell this because they were standing straight up on defense and rubbing bellies with the offensive linemen.

All in all, there is hope. I don't see us having the 6-1 record like last year (Bemidji . . . errrr . . . spoiled our undefeated season. It was getting dark so they conveniently switched to running time when we were behind. We also fumbled six times. But we had a chance to win with under a minute to go (and about 40 yards to the endzone), but I called a dumb trick play that was intercepted). But it'that group will be one of the best groups to ever come through TRF.

Just last week while the juniors and seniors were heading off to paintball, and the freshman were practicing, a good share of the sophomores hung around to watch us. Then we sat around the portapits and reminisced about the season. What was so impressive was that these guys talked football the same way I did when I was their age (and there was nothing I loved more than football in high school). As we talked, it was like we were transported back a year in time to that season. I was surprised at what they recalled. They remembered as many plays and events as I did.

But that was part of what made those kids so special.

That's a lot for this group to live up to. But there's talent there. We just have to mine it and get it to the surface.