The Brownwood Lions wrapped up their first week of preseason football practice with an intrasquad Saturday morning at Gordon Wood Stadium, and the most notable difference from 2020 was the change in tempo on the offensive side of the ball.
“We’re trying to stress the defense and get them tired but also get them in a base formation where they can’t do a bunch of stunting and rolling with their coverages,” said Lions fourth-year head coach Sammy Burnett. “We want to determine what they’re in, and not let them be able to determine what they’re in. That’s the reason behind it, trying to tax the defense because the legs feed the wolf and in the fourth quarter we want to outlast teams and be in better shape. If we go fast it gives us an opportunity to do that.”
A mixture of varsity and JV players squared off against each other for approximately an hour Saturday morning. Among the highlights was an opening high-octane march by the offense that resulted in a short Konlyn Anderson touchdown run. Then, later in the scrimmage, Xavier Zapata caught a screen pass and raced 70 yards to the end zone for the second and final touchdown of the event.
Defensively, the Lions forced a fumble and also produced a goal line stand during Saturday’s action.
“No. 1 offensively I like the speed that we started at and the understanding that we’ve got to get in shape,” Burnett said in assessing the action. “We want the defense to be gassed, we don’t want to be gassed while we’re doing that. We found out we’re not where we need to be conditioning wise. Defensively, they got set in formations well because we were going fast, so that’s a testament to the work they’ve done over the summer. They have to learn how to play fast and be in shape, too. We turned the ball over once on a fumble, so there’s a good opportunity to learn a lesson now. The second group executed well. They’re still trying to learn to transition to a faster speed of the game but all in all, I thought it was a good start for us.”
With the first week of the practice in the books, the Lions resume workouts Monday with the first of two scrimmages – against Salado – slated for the morning of Friday, Aug. 13 at Gordon Wood Stadium. The subvarsities will take the field at 10 a.m. with varsity action to follow at 11 a.m.
“The chemistry is growing, we’re doing well there, and the kids are working really hard,” Burnett said. “They have a desire to be different, they have a desire to be special, and they have high aspirations for the season. I’m looking forward to the potential they have, but potential can kill you if you don’t apply it. This is a good starting point for us and we need to keep growing next week.
“We have a scrimmage against a tough-nosed team in Salado and that scrimmage is for one reason – to see if we’re tough or not. If we can pass that test we’ll go on to the Godley scrimmage which is more of the type of offenses and defenses we’ll see and we’ll see how we execute there.”
