Most football teams show the most improvement from week one to week two.
Veteran Winona Christian football coach Junior Graham said he saw his team get better in a scrimmage against Benton Academy last Thursday.
“We looked better on things we were looking to polish up on,” Graham said. “I thought we threw the ball better. We had the Marlow twins back and got to see them play for the first time this fall. They came back and haven’t missed a beat. They picked up where they did last fall.”
Graham said each team ran 25 plays on offense and then each team’s junior high rans some plays.
Graham said there were a couple of highlights in the scrimmage.
“I thought our defensive line played extremely well and I thought our offensive line played well,” Graham said. “That’s where most of our growth has been, on the offensive and defensive lines.”
Graham said he also saw some good things out of the passing game.
“I thought the ball got out of the quarterback’s hand a little bit quicker,” Graham said. “So we are hopefully getting better on that end. Choyce Diffey and Dalton Newman both scored on some long runs out of the passing game. One was on a bubble and the other was on a slip screen. If we can get our line to play like that and can stretch the defense with some big plays, I think we can be pretty good on offense.”
The Stars will open the regular season this week when they host French Camp Academy.
Last year, French Camp took a 36-34 victory.
“They didn’t do a jamboree so we will be going in blind,” Graham said. “We will just look at what they have done the last two years. I do know they are well coached and will play hard. You just have to hope that us playing two scrimmages will give us an advantage. It should help with conditioning alone. I know we got better from one scrimmage to the other. We could scrimmage each other every day and not get the same result as playing somebody else.”
French Camp went 8-4 last year and lost in the first round of the Class 1A playoffs after finishing second in the Division 3-1A race.
