By T. Scott Boatright
David got in some shots playing a pair of Goliaths Thursday as the Class 1A Lincoln Preparatory School Panthers scrimmaged against both Class 3A Carroll and Class 4A Booker T. Washington-Shreveport at the CHS football stadium.
“We scored twice on Booker T. and held them scoreless to start things off,” said Panthers coach Glen Hall. “Then we held Carroll scoreless in the first half of that scrimmage but on the last eight plays of offense they ran, they finally wore us down and scored twice, maybe three times.
“But considering the numbers they have with 50 or more compared to the 28 guys we had out there, I was very pleased with the way we looked. It wasn’t perfect by any means. But we showed some potential against some big boys. And if we can keep learning from the mistakes we made in an early scrimmage, then I feel good about this football team once the season starts for real and especially by the time the district season starts.”
“He played like I expected,” Hall said of his senior quarterback Bralyn Mayfield who primarily played as a receiver last year. “He was real nervous and wasn’t used to the pass rush. But once he did settle down he threw some good balls. He threw some good strikes.
“We scored on a wheel route to (running back) Chauncy Harper out of the backfield that went for a long touchdown. Chauncy scored on two long touchdown passes and also broke a long run. And he dropped another pass that should have gone for a score. We were in there. We did some real good things along with some bad things, but that’s to be expected at this point in the preseason.”
Hall said the learning experience showed the players as well as the coaching staff what they need to work on and focus on.
“We’re going to have to run the ball and throw off the play-action pass,” Hall said.
Hall said Jamarius Buggs ran well out of the backfield, too.
“Big Buggs ran for about 60 yards,” Hall said. “Harper broke another for about 30 or 40 (yards) but then fumbled. That was against Carroll. We were breaking runs and doing all of that. We were in there. But we made some mistakes with some fumbles, and a bad center snap.
“We just made too many mistakes. The screens were working and Big Buggs did a good job of pounding his way for yardage. We ran a lot of leads and did well on those. We moved Marvin Johnson from center to fullback and let him open the holes and moved Lathan Elmore in there to take his spot at center. And we put our big freshman in there — Jakobe Jones — and he did a good job of blocking for us. He’s about 6-3 and 350.”
Hall said ‘Little Buggs’ — Jamarius’ twin brother Jamarion — also played well at the receiver position.
“Big Buggs ran over and through people and Little Buggs caught a couple of passes and did well, ” Hall said. “It wasn’t pretty — nothing is at this point in the preseason. But I’m excited and feel good about the direction we’re headed in.
“We’re going to clean some things up and hopefully we’ll put on a better show next week (vs. Red River) at the Bayou Jamb playing at (Louisiana) Tech. We’ll have a good crowd there, so we want to put on a good show.”
