HUNTSVILLE — To wrap up the first week of football practice, Huntsville put on the pads and held its first intrasquad scrimmage, as it was the first day for full contact.
While Huntsville is expected to be a defensive team, both varsity offenses found grooves against the defense, which was down two starters. Senior quarterback Austin Taylor led the first group down on the first drive for a score before the second team followed suit.
“Overall, I thought it was good. I thought our first two offensive groups handled the situation well, but our tackling wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be,” Huntsville head coach Rodney Southern said. “It was a pretty good run of plays, I think somewhere around 60-75.”
The offense is something that is going to make Huntsville’s season. As the defense has proved it can be one of the best in the state, they need points on the board.
Taylor will be entering his third year as the Game One starter and has shown improvement over the summer and the first week of camp. During the scrimmage, he looked relaxed and was flowing with his throws. With a strong core of receivers returning, they have the relationship to build off of after a 14-week season last year.
Not to mention, Huntsville has four varsity running backs that can help the load and create play-action opportunities to make this a multi-dimensional offense.
“Austin was smooth today. We’ve harped and harped and harped on him about knowing the situation you are in during the game,” Southern said. “I thought both quarterbacks handled it well. Austin had a lot of confidence and has played a lot of football for us. I think he is starting to understand what we want from him.”
Huntsville’s hung its hat on the defensive side of the ball for multiple years now and this season will be no different.
The Hornets bring back Shiloh Jones for his senior season and he will be the Hornets’ main guy on the defensive side of the ball.
Jones, a four-year varsity member, will have a strong core around him, too. Mu’Koryc Norman, Trae Scott III and Brent Carroll will be guys that Huntsville relies on.
Scott III and Carroll are expected to be the two corners for the Hornets after getting several reps last year as Isaiah Collins was moved to safety. They both exceeded expectations as sophomores and got four extra weeks of reps with the playoff run.
As the two need to lock down the perimeter, Huntsville will need assistance from the defensive line, which is nine members deep.
“We had two defensive starters that didn’t play at all. I thought in our O-line and D-Line comparison, the O-Line probably won today. We tried to get eight or nine defensive linemen in to keep them fresh. Overall, we didn’t make enough plays. There’s nothing out there we can’t correct.”
Luckily for Huntsville, they have another two weeks of prep before the games start to count. And, they will have an opportunity to get a game week prep before it matters, too.
Huntsville will treat its Friday scrimmage as a normal game week, and the start of school on Monday. The Hornets will hold before and after school practices and have Friday set up like a home game.
“We will start Monday like it’s a game week, even though it’s a scrimmage week for everybody. We are treating it just like a game week. We are home Friday and then the next two after that,” Southern said. “That’s been good and it’s going to be better than last year.”
The Hornets will battle Lufkin in the two squads’ annual scrimmage. Varsity is expected to start at 6 p.m. Friday at Huntsville ISD Stadium.