After five weeks of Spring practices, the football team will team go at each other one last time Friday evening in the annual Purple-White game.
This last month completed a lot of “firsts” for the team including its first Spring practices in Wildcat Stadium. Head Coach Adam Dorrel will also finish his first Spring drills with the team coming off of a regular season.
Dorrel said he’s happy with the progress his team made these past weeks.
“I’ve been really pleased with the player’s effort and attitude,” Dorrel said. “We’re starting to focus on us and build our team chemistry. I feel like we’re quite a ways ahead from where we were last year.”
The Wildcats had several areas of the team being studied closely during Spring. Offensively, redshirt freshman quarterback Luke Anthony saw his first reps as the potential starter for next season.
Dorrel made it a point before Spring practices started that he was ready to develop Anthony more, but he also explained improving the offensive line would be a bigger focus.
Anthony said his line definitely got better in the past five weeks.
“We have made a ton of growth up front with the offensive line which is the most encouraging part to me,” Anthony said. “The aggression they have continued to play with, through spring, has been awesome. I am most proud of the cohesiveness of our unit on offense and the level of competitiveness we have shown consistently.”
On the defensive side, a key goal for the team before spring started was figuring out a replacement for senior linebacker Sam Denmark.
Dorrel commented on the linebackers he was impressed by.
“Jeremiah Chambers has been really solid this spring at linebacker, same thing with Jack Gibbens,” Dorrel said. “I think those two have been really good. Also, Landry Hutchins has done some good things and so has Quincy Dunn.”
The team will also look forward to returning the safety duo of junior Brandon Richmond and sophomore Bolu Onifade.
For the fans, admission will be free, and the gates will open at 4:30 p.m. The scrimmage will kick off at 6:30 beginning with special teams practice, then the offensive and defensive teams will take the field immediately after.
