WILLIAMSTON — The Riverside, Plymouth and South Creek football teams made their summer debut on Wednesday as they were joined by Pasquotank, Northeastern and South Central in a six-team scrimmage at Riverside High School.
The scrimmage was filled with highlights but it was the execution that allowed those highlights to take place that each team’s respective coaches were looking for during the exhibition.
This time of year coaches want to make sure they have the right players in the right positions and Wednesday’s scrimmage will go a long way to help the coaches determine that.
“It helps the evaluation process out a lot,” Riverside coach Asim McGill said. “We want to find out who wants to play.”
For more veteran teams like Plymouth, who went 11-2 last year and advanced all the way to the third round of the playoffs, most of its positions battles have been settled already but the key for coach Robert Cody was to see how his offensive and defensive units react to different formations.
“Defensively, I want to see how we lineup to some of these four-wide receiver sets because we don’t practice against that a lot,” Cody said. “That’s probably the biggest thing we get out of it. Then, we want to see (how the offense) blocks against some of these four-front defenses. It’s early in the year but I thought we reacted pretty good.”
On the other hand, for a less experienced team like South Creek, the scrimmage provided a good opportunity to work on plays against different looks.
“We’re young, so we want to get a lot of reps,” South Creek coach Jeremy Jones said. “We feel like our defense has been on par, but our offense is coming along a little slower but its always hard on offense when you’re going against a 3-4 defense then a 4-4 defense. There’s just so many different defenses. Our offensive line is all underclassmen so we just want to get them a lot of reps.”
Jones said the film from the scrimmage will be a big help in evaluating the depth chart.
“We feel like we have a lot of guys in the right places but we want to make sure,” Jones said. “We have a couple of position battles, especially at the slots. … It’s really not so much the people but were we put them.”
While several big plays were made on Wednesday, McGill said just which player’s stock rose won’t be determined until he watches the game film.
“It’s hard to say who stood out until we watch the film but the eye in the sky don’t lie,” McGill said.
All three teams will officially begin the 2012 football season on Aug. 17 as Plymouth hosts Farmville Central, while South Creek will be at North Edgecombe and Riverside will travel to Ayden-Grifton.