Trojans conclude ‘fun’ two weeks with spring scrimmage

The Gordon Lee Trojans traveled across state lines to Alabama on Friday night for a three-team scrimmage.

Gordon Lee and Chattooga played for two quarters before the Trojans faced off with the home team, Valley Head, for two more quarters. Chattooga and Valley Head played the final two quarters to finish out the night.

The first quarter of each mini-game was played like a regular football game, but without live special teams, while the younger players got work in the second quarter. The line of scrimmage was reset after long plays during that second period.

Gordon Lee gave up one touchdown and one 2-point conversion to the host Tigers in its first quarter of play and gave up a pair of touchdowns to Chattooga, while Layne Vaughn found the endzone once for the Navy-and-white.

Still, Gordon Lee head coach Josh Groce said the scrimmage was extremely beneficial.

“Obviously, we still have a lot to work on, but I do feel that coming off of spring practice, we are two weeks ahead of where we were last year,” he said. “A lot of young kids got reps this spring that they normally wouldn’t have gotten. We didn’t necessarily scheme for anybody during the scrimmage. We just ran our base stuff and just worked on us.

“But we were able to get everybody on film to see what they can and can’t do, which will give us a chance to adjust what positions they play.”

Groce said seeing two different styles of offense played by their opponents on Friday was another plus.

“Chattooga is very athletic and Valley Head can play in a phone booth,” he chuckled. “(Valley Head) is a lot like us. They are perfectly happy with three yards and a cloud of dust. But it was good for us to face one team that was very smash-mouth and another that was very athletic because we’re going to see a lot of that (athleticism) this year in (Class) AAA.”

TROJANS,

The Trojans were still without a small handful of starters, who were just finishing up other spring sports. However, Groce said the main takeaway from the last two weeks is that he believes his team is better now than they were when spring practice began.

“These two weeks have been two of the most fun weeks of football that we’ve done in a long time,” he added. “The kids’ excitement level, energy and receptiveness to what we’re putting in has been awesome.

“What they hadn’t seen, until (Friday) night, was adversity and we’ve got to do better on how to handle things when adversity hits. But if we hadn’t played the scrimmage, we wouldn’t have seen that.”

Gordon Lee will hold an intrasquad scrimmage on Aug. 11 prior to its season-opener on Aug. 19 at home against Trion.