With the first day of full contact football practice taking place Aug. 5, the Andrews and Murphy high schools teams are inching closer to the start of the regular season.
Both teams have been dodging rain and dealing with the heat as they get ready to start the season. The regular season kicks off Friday, Aug. 22 with both teams hitting the road.
Murphy will start their season by facing Franklin in a neutral site matchup at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. Andrews will hit the road to start the regular season with a trip to Madison High School.
Before the regular season gets underway, both teams will have a scrimmage Friday night.
Andrews – which played a scrimmage against Copper Basin, Tenn., last week – will host North Buncombe at 6 p.m. Friday. Murphy will hit the road for their lone scrimmage against T.C. Roberson.
The Cherokee Scout spoke with the head coaches of Andrews and Murphy to get their thoughts on preseason camp and their scrimmages.
Andrews
To prepare for their two scrimmages against Copper Basin and North Buncombe, Wildcats head coach Jason Johnson said players have been acclimating and getting in repetitions on the field.
“We started practice [July 30] and we’ve just been acclimating from helmets to shoulder pads to full gear and we’ll start contact [Aug. 6]. Just getting reps, getting these young kids reps. That’s the big thing,” Johnson said.
“We’ve got a lot of new faces in new places, so the main thing right now is getting reps. And we’re looking forward to our scrimmage Friday against Copper Basin. In fact, that’ll show us a lot. We’ll learn a lot from that scrimmage.”
Speaking on the importance of playing two preseason scrimmages, Johnson said, “It’s very important. It gives us a chance to get kids on film, we still have time to move kids around and get them in the right spot because right now we don’t know if they’re in the right spot of not. Very few of them have had true game experience on the team this year.
“So those two scrimmages will let us know if they can play that spot or if we need to move them or we need to look for someone else to play those key spots for us.
With the new conference realignment, North Buncombe is 5A and plays in a 5A/6A split conference. Johnson said playing a bigger school will be a good test for them.
“It gives us a chance to test our toughness, it gives us a chance to see if we’re in shape, our conditioning,” he said. “They’ll be three or four deep, and of course, we’re one to one and a half deep at positions.
“It’s always a good measuring stick for us early on in the season, so we enjoy scrimmaging North Buncombe because it lets us know where we’re at. It allows us to work on a lot of different things.”
Murphy
Bulldogs head coach Joseph Watson said some of his team’s goals for camp include getting reps on the field, as well as getting in shape for a tough upcoming season.
“Our first 10 or 12 days, the new kids we do have to make sure they understand exactly what they need to do and get them as many reps as possible to understand their assignments offensively and defensively and get their bodies in shape and ready for a tough season and it’ll be a grueling season,” Watson said.
“We are not changing a whole lot in what we do, so there’s not a lot of learning new things. And just the ones that haven’t started or haven’t played a big role, making sure they understand what to do and the ones that have, they just have to keep getting better. There’s always room for improvement, and we’ll try to make sure we do that every day.”
Watson gave his assessment of their training camp so far.
“It’s been really good so far. Like I said, we have a good group of seniors and they’ve been leading the way and [Aug. 5] was our first full contact day and saw some really good things and saw some things we knew we had and you don’t have to see too much of it … but then you see some things that you can correct and things that aren’t so good, but the camp so far has been really good,” he said.
“The kids have been awesome. Everything we ask them to do, they’re doing it as hard as they can and that’s what we try to instill into them. Other than the fact that we’ve dodged some rain and it’s not as hot yet, it’s hard to get them in that shape for the heat, but we’re going to try.”
To prepare for their scrimmage Friday against T.C. Roberson, Watson said the Bulldogs will do their base things and use it as a learning experience.
“We don’t really scout for the scrimmages. We kind of just do what we do and as we go into it, we do our base stuff. We don’t try to scheme them or scout them or put in things specifically for a scrimmage. That’s not something we do,” he said.
“We’re just trying to learn as much as we possibly can and get as many reps as we possibly can to prepare us to go out there and look good and have a good showing, but we really focused on our first game … Franklin … and the scrimmage is a thing to make sure that you have your kids where you should have them.”