Wildcats conduct first practice
El Dorado beat the heat Monday afternoon at the high school with a football practice that lasted more than two hours. The Wildcats sprinkled in plenty of water breaks as the temperature hovered in the 90s.
“We stayed off the turf today. It gets pretty toasty on the turf over there. We stayed on the grass at the high school. That went well. We had a pretty nice breeze throughout practice so that helped out, too. Our kids did a good job,” said El Dorado coach Steven Jones.
“Our guys moved around real well. We had right around a hundred guys. It was good participation. Everybody worked hard today, nice and toasty out there and nobody was complaining. I thought we had great energy on the practice field. For the most part, our guys showed good body language throughout the day. They really wanted to be here. They wanted to get better. I’m looking forward to the rest of the week.”
The Wildcats did mostly group work. The defensive players went through tackling drills, pass defense and pass rush techniques. Offensively, there was a lot of route running and throwing and catching from the skilled players.
“We worked everything,” said Jones. “We worked all three sides of the ball. We worked offense, defense and sprinkled in a couple field goal periods. We were able to work some kickoff team. We got a lot of work done in a little amount of time.”
Greysen Hubbard returns as El Dorado’s place kicker. He will join David Carruth in the competition for the punter and kicker positions.
“Both of those guys are very talented,” Jones said. “Dave has really shown a lot of improvement this summer. He has a great work ethic. I’ve been very impressed with how he shows up and does a lot of stuff on his own.”
El Dorado finished Monday’s workout with some conditioning. Former Wildcat and Oklahoma State Cowboy John Johnson watched from the sideline. Johnson coached with the Atlanta Legends in the AAF last season.
Today, Jones said the team will start to focus in on more 11-on-11 stuff.
“We’ll have a little bit different day. We’ll go more team periods. We’ll probably be together more,” he said. “Today we were split up offense-defense the entire time. We’ll probably go more team sessions tomorrow, get a little more competition mixed in and then at the end of practice, we’ll head over to the stadium and take team pictures at six o’clock.”