Big crowd watches Tigers

It's almost hard to believe there's still two weeks before Fort Scott High School plays a football game that counts.

If the crowd that gathered at the lawn chair scrimmage at the FSHS practice field Saturday morning is any indication, there's a lot of anticipation in the air.

And although there's some buzz about some of the players the Tigers have coming back this year -- the entire starting backfield in the final regular-season game returns to camp for the first time since 1985 -- new head coach Don Epps made it clear that no one is guaranteed anything going into this season.

"Right now, we may say we have a No. 1 offense but that doesn't mean anything," Epps said. "(The scrimmage was) the audition for them. We told the kids so (Friday) in the locker room. We told them the camera was on and to play as hard as they could because we're going to evaluate them.

"We may have new starters (today). And those kids will have to fight to get back into those spots. "

The freshmen started things off with about an hour of work and then the varsity/junior varsity went out for about and hour and 45 minutes.

Everyone involved got a good workout and Epps was generally pleased with what he saw.

"The first team (offense) did a nice job of alignment and assignment," Epps said. "We weren't trying to run any trick plays today. We wanted to run base offense; to see who could block an who could tackle.

"We evaluate both sides of the ball. The whole thing's taped. And now, we're going to spend the weekend evaluating players."

But and up-close on the field look showed the coaches what they want to focus on in evaluating.

"The strong side of the (offensive) line played well," Epps said. "I thought (Jake) Lattimer ran the ball well. Our passing game will take time to develop. But we made throws and read the keys."

Epps said the second-team defense gave the No. 1 offense a good effort and made the offense work.

"I want to give a shout out to the No. 2 D because they gave us a very good look," Epps said.

Next the JV offense ran some series against a mostly sophomore defense. After that, the No. 1 defense worked against the JV offense.

"The starting D did a really nice job against the run," Epps said. "We flew to the ball and I thought we had very good pursuit to the ball. The secondary did a good job in run support. But we need to keep getting better in the secondary against the pass."

Pass defense is just one of the things Epps sees the Tigers will need to work on before opening the season with a Southeast Kansas League game against Parsons at Frary Field on Sept. 1.

"This was only our third day in pads," Epps noted. "So we're working on basics. We're doing what we do well -- the veer and the counter. That's what we're going to do first. Next week, we'll work on some spread formations and also start looking at Parsons."

Epps got a chance to look at some of the freshmen scrimmage before the varsity session began. Because of the nature of the middle school intramural program, this is the first time this class has played as one team.

"This is their first experience in our program," Epps said. "And a lot of them have to be disciplined (in execution). They had good effort and we're still in the mid 30's in numbers, which is great.

"We're going to show them film. It's the first time they'll have seen film of themselves and it's going to shock them. Defensively, for example, they're trying to play every position. They need to worry about their job. And we do alignment and assignment football and they need to watch their film and learn from it and keep getting better. It's a whole-year process for them and we want them to be the sharpest at the end of the year."

The annual Red & White Scrimmage is Friday at Frary Field. The freshmen will scrimmage at 6 p.m. followed by the varsity/JV at about 7.

Admission to Friday's scrimmage is a can of soda or sports drink (patrons can bring more than one if they wish to) to supply the players during the season.