By T. Scott Boatright
Lincoln Preparatory School football coach Chaunce Davison is looking for two things as his Panthers take on Madison and General Trass in Jamboree action on Panthers Field tonight — clean play and continued improvement.
The Panthers will face Madison at 6 p.m. with Lincoln Prep ending the night with a contest starting around 8:30 p.m. against General Tass.
In between those two Jamboree showdowns, Arcadia will take on General Trass around 6:50 p.m. and then Madison is a game set to start around 7:40 p.m.
“The first thing I need to see is clean play,” Davison said. “We want to see that they understand calls and assignments, and to do that you need a lot of reps,” Davison said. “Hopefully the reps they get tonight will help them prepare for next week and the season opener.
“But we also want to see them continuing to improve. They showed that some last week when they took on host school Winnfield and Grant High School. We did OK last week. But we need to see better this week. We need to see effort. We need to see intensity.”
Davison will be taking a good, hard look at his offense line in tonight’s jamboree.
“We have pretty much all new guys up there,” Davison said. “We lost big (OG/DT) Ryan Randolph, who played that position for years for us. We lost (OT/DT) Jakobe Jones, who also was a longtime starter.
“Both of those guys graduated. We also lost (C/DT) Dylan (NShom). He didn’t graduate, but he left us. So everybody’s that on the offensive line is brand new besides (senior OT Nicholas Nelson). So it’s still a learning process right now and we really need to see them continue to get better.”
The Panthers are without quarterback Josh Kelly, who it was learned early on during the summer had ended up tearing an ACL during Lincoln Prep’s spring game, meaning the Panthers’ “Swiss Army Knife” — Jabari Levingston, will move over from RB/WR to take a majority of the snaps at quarterback.
“We’ve also got Jamel (Willliams), who’s going into ninth grade, behind Jabari at quarterback,” Davison said. “And we also have Karmello (Jones) who can get behind center and take snaps and throw it.”
But first and foremost, it will be Levingston, who is heading into his junior year, leading Lincoln Prep’s offensive attack.
“He’s always wanted to throw the ball,” Davison said. “Even with Josh at quarterback, Jabari wanted to throw the ball. I think secretly he always wanted to be the quarterback. He’s one of those guys who can do whatever he wants to do. He is our Superman.”
Jakaylyen Armstrong takes over as Lincoln Prep’s starting running back role with Karmelo Goins along with sophomore Howard Kirkpatrick, a hard-nosed pounder who showed toughness and solid power rushing at times last year as a freshman, backing Armstrong up.
Goins also played receiver in Lincoln Prep’s spring scrimmage, hauling in a touchdown pass, but Davison is especially excited that his Panthers also feature a strong returning talent at wideout in senior Josiah Spann, who led Lincoln Prep with 657 receiving yards and seven touchdowns last year.
“Josiah played a big role for us last year catching the football and playing in the defensive backfield,” Davison said. “So, we’re looking for even more during his senior season. He’s going to be one of our team leaders. We feel good about having him return for his senior season.
Davison likes the way his defense is shaping up, with Levingston (DB) Nelson (DL), Kirkpatrick (LB) and eighth-grader Keilon Miller expected to play key roles.
“We’re going to be all right on that side of the ball,” Davison said. “We just need to know our assignments and go play football.”
