Kats see improvement in second scrimmage
8/19/2015 12:27:00 PM | Football
Both coaches and players alike believe they saw improvement in the team's play in Sam Houston's second scrimmage of 2015 preseason football training camp Wednesday morning.
But everyone agreed there's still plenty of room work to do especially in the area of eliminating penalties and mental mistakes.
“Today was a lot better than the first scrimmage,” senior center Zach Stevens said. “I feel like we could have played cleaner. We had two holding penalties and one was mine. That's unacceptable. But, at the end of the day, we got better.”
With a number of veterans seeing limited action as a precaution to prevent injury, the offense was dotted with younger players.
“We've got a good team and we want to get to the opening game healthy,” head coach K. C. Keeler said. “It's the dog days of training camp right now and we have some players that need some more time to recover. We'll get those guys back Friday. So, with younger guys in we had some missed assignments and routes. I was really pleased with the play of the veterans. We've got to get the younger guys caught up.”
Sam Houston opens the season on Saturday Sept. 5 against Texas Tech in Lubbock. A major concern is the team ready to play their best with all the distractions that will come with the enthusiastic fans that will fill Jones Stadium that day.
“There's no way to simulate a football game,” Keeler said. “We're doing everything we can to get the players ready for that experience. It's important to have a scrimmage like today with the officials calling penalties. Also, we practice at fast tempo. The players are under a lot of pressure to get their call and get lined up. The way we practice with the music and pace makes it difficult to communicate.
“Obviously, there's no way we can simulate what Texas Tech is going to look like on Sept. 5, but we're doing our best.”
The Bearkat defense had a good showing Wednesday morning, picking off three interceptions and disrupting wide receiver's play at the line of scrimmage.
“Things went very well,” senior cornerback Trenier Orr said. “We tackled well. One of the things we've really worked on is to have a better tackling team. We played cleaner. That's a focus every day. We need to avoid stupid penalties and mistakes. Our two main focuses right now are to get in condition to go 60 to 70 plays a game and to eliminate errors.”
Sam Houston will take a break from practice on the field Thursday while continuing both position and team meetings. The Kats are back at work on Friday with practice sessions at both 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.
“The defense did some good things today,” Keeler said. “There were a lot of tipped passes and that comes from the defensive line putting pressure on the quarterback. One of the areas where we had a big transformation last season was the huge step forward the defensive line took.”
Sam Houston's first home game opens the 2015 Southland Conference schedule for the Kats as Lamar visits Elliott T. Bowers Stadium on Saturday Sept. 19. Season tickets for all six home games at Bowers and the 90th “Battle of the Piney Woods” presented by H-E-B are on sale now online at www.gobearkats.com and at the Sam Houston athletic ticket office located on the west side of the stadium. The ticket office telephone is (936) 294-1729.
