South Ready for Football

Twin Valley South scrimmaged Middletown Madison this past weekend in their final scrimmage before starting the regular season next Friday at Dixie.  This season the team is under new head coach Clint Bartlett who takes over the helm from coach Tyler Cates.   Cates left South to take over the head coaching job at Covington after a 6-4 season.

Under Bartlett the team is running a different style of offense - a pro set offense with two backs in the back field and wide receivers.  Madison ran a wing T offense at first and later in the scrimmage ran some plays with a single wing.  In the early going the South offense had a tough time sustaining drives.   They had some decent runs at times but were thrown for loss or had penalties that put them in long yardage situations.

The Panthers had a tough time passing.  They threw sparingly but couldn't make critical catches when they were needed.  Madison mostly ran the ball as well, but they were a little more effective with their passing attack.  In the first half, Madison was able to score 4 times and in the second part of the scrimmage they were able to kick a decent field goal.  The kick was at least 35 yards, so not bad for a high school kicker.

South did have a respectable drive after the break.  First the defense stood up Madison, holding them to 3 plays and forcing them to give up the ball.  The offense seemed to feed off of that energy and put together their best drive of night going the distance and punching the ball in for their score.  The drive had to finish with the back up quarterback as the starting quarterback appeared to be having some sort of problem with his leg.  Still it was nice to see the team have the spirit and the ability to come back after being down.  After this the two teams began to substitute in the second half of the scrimmage - giving the reserves some field time.

South graduated some talent and are learning a new system under a new coach.  So there is a lot for new players to absorb in a short period of time. So inexperience at varsity play and with the new scheme will be factors for South to overcome. Their first game is a against Dixie, a team hungry for wins, coming off of a 1 win season last year.   The Hounds are down a little on numbers this season, while South has a deeper roster so fatigue could be a factor in this first game. The weather will be warm and players that have to go both ways will wear down fast. Since this game is against a SWBL school the start time will be 7pm.