El Dorado to take on Nashville in benefit game.

El Dorado will take on Nashville today in an Arkansas Activities Association benefit football game, which will be played on the campus of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia.

Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. Admission is $4.

The game was originally scheduled to be played in Magnolia.

“We had to move the game to Henderson State. Nashville opens up in one of those kickoff classic games next Monday,” explained El Dorado coach Steven Jones.

“We wanted to give them time to be able to be ready for their first actual game. So, we agreed to move the game up. But then SAU had a conflict. So, we had to move to Henderson.”

The format will be a regular game, but special teams won’t be live.

“Our plan, right now, is to play the first unit in the first half. We’d like to get them as many reps as we can on both sides of the ball,” said Jones.

“The ones will play in the first half and then we’ll play our 1A’s and our 2’s in the second half. We’re taking 65 guys. We’re not taking the full squad. We look forward to all the guys that travel with us, getting to see who’s going to be a contributor on Friday.”

The Scrappers are, perennially, one of the top 5A programs in the state.

“Nashville is a good football program. They have a lot of history there, very well coached. We’re just looking forward to good competition,” said Jones.

“Our kids are tired of hitting each other and ready to get out there and line up against somebody else. We’re looking forward to that aspect of it and getting a good gauge at where we’re at.”

The Wildcats held their PurpleWhite game on Friday and followed that up with a light workout on Monday at the high school.

“We stayed in shorts today and threw in some sudden change. We worked a lot of situations. Defense gets a turnover and offense has to be back on the field, that kind of thing. We went through game-like scenarios. We worked on our end-of-game stuff like Hail Mary, Victory formation, taking a knee. We ran through some two-minute drill. Both sides of the ball got a lot of two-minute work,” said Jones.

“Offense, we worked on, within a two-minute drill, hurry up and spike the ball. All the game situations we really haven’t worked

on a lot, we touched on today. We did all special teams – kickoff, kickoff return. We went through our punt return a good bit today. I really liked that unit. That could create some explosive plays this year. We did get a little workout in beforehand. We tried to make sure we covered every game scenario that might pop up.”

After watching the film, Jones noted some of the things his team will focus on before the season opener.

“Just clean up the little things we had in our Purple-White game, maybe some mishaps like a couple botched snaps. Sometimes when we go under center, we struggle with that lately, so just cleaning up some of the exchange stuff and just being able to operate at the pace we want to,” he said.

“We didn’t have a referee crew out there on Friday.

“That makes a difference when you get into spotting the ball and the 40-second clocks. When we see that in an actual game scenario, we’ll know a little more about where we’re at.”

Jones said junior safety Jarmel Love and senior corner Will Artis aren’t expected to play tonight but should be ready for the season opener. Clasine Miller could be back in action, however.

As for Nashville, the scoreboard won’t be the most important thing. But Jones said it does matter.

“Obviously, we want to win the game. We’ll play it very game-like in the first half. In the second half, we’ll be looking for more reps. But, definitely in the first half, we want to come out and compete and try to win the game,” he said.

“Most importantly, we want to get out of this thing healthy.”