Durant head football coach Todd Vargas and staff saw some positives as well as things to work on in the Lions’ lone preseason scrimmage last week when they traveled south of the Red River to Van Alstyne, Texas.
While the Lions did not find the end zone in the live period session of the scrimmage they did put together a solid sustained march to paydirt on one of their first series of the evening against the Panthers.
Quarterback Joseph Flores showed good flow in the Lions’ flexbone offensive system with Tyler Rhodes and Draegen Baker adding productive carries out of the backfield from the fullback slot.
“It was our first competition against anybody other than ourselves so we saw some good things and things we need to fix,” Vargas commented. “I felt like it was a pretty productive outing on both sides of the ball. We were very pleased with the kids’ effort and the physicality they showed. Right now we are just looking for people to step up on both sides of the ball and we had several that played well.
“Our backs ran the ball pretty well but we dropped some passes that we shouldn’t have. We have to get better in that area. But overall, I thought our line blocked pretty well. We just need to shore up some things in our pass blocking. On defense we ran to the ball really well. I thought our linebackers played pretty solid and our defensive line showed some good things. We were up and down in the secondary though. We had some penalties that cost us opportunities in the live quarter.”
The Lions will quickly set their sights on the season opener and old rival Ada when they travel to Norris Field on Friday night for the 7:30 kickoff.
While the Cougars return several key weapons from a squad that posted 10 games a year ago and is ranked in the preseason Top 10, they will also be breaking in a new quarterback this year. Seniors Cody Carpenter and Canaan Parker are expected to be the squad’s main playmakers both in the run and passing games.
“We kind of know what to expect from them after playing for about the last six years in non-district,” Vargas said of the Cougars. “They are going to have around a 50-50 run-pass mix offensively and use the quick passing game a lot. They will try to hit you deep if you start playing too many near the line of scrimmage. Ada’s running game is mostly counter action and they are really big up front.
“We don’t have a lot of film on them but they are always well coached and play well defensively. They graduated a lot from last year so we are similar in that regard. The past few years against them they have made more plays than us when it mattered. We have to turn that around. We need to sustain drives offensively and not commit penalties that put us behind the chains as well as take care of the football. On defense we have to tackle in space. They aren’t going to do anything that is going to overwhelm or trick us. I thought our defense adapted well last week to Van Alstyne’s up-tempo style. We were able to line up in position and make a lot of tackles.”