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Scrimmage reveals confident team |
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Tuesday, 27 March 2007 |
by Drew Stewart
Intern Sports Reporter
The Appalachian State University football team held an intra-squad scrimmage Saturday.
Though the offense beat the defense, if the game were Friday, the result would probably be different.
“We trade days,” freshman quarterback Armanti Edwards said. “One day we will get them and the next they will get us.”
Edwards showed more confidence after leading last season’s championship team.
Last season, Edwards was only able to memorize the primary and secondary receiver in the plays.
With more time with the playbook, he said he has been able to learn where other receivers will be.
“Last season if the primary receiver wasn’t open, a lot of the time I would just run it,” Edwards said.
“But now I know where the third and fourth guys are too, and I can go through my reads a little bit better.”
The receivers have noticed a more comfortable quarterback.
“You can see Armanti doing his reads,” junior wide receiver Dexter
Jackson said. “He can find that fourth receiver and last year,
sometimes, he didn’t.”
However, this does not mean Edwards will stop running the ball, which
was part of the reason he was so dynamic in his freshman season.
In the scrimmage, Edwards had a few runs for huge gains, as his red, number-14 jersey floated through the defense.
The offense has focused on avoiding turnovers.
“We have worked a lot on not turning over the ball,” Edwards said. “We have decreased them tremendously.”
While Edwards has been a focal point this off-season, Appalachian head
coach Jerry Moore said there has been improvements across the board.
“It hasn’t been just one guy that stands out,” he said. “It has been
all the young guys that impressed me. The young offensive line has
gotten a lot of reps -- 120 reps. That is two ball games. They will
just get better and better.”
The coaches have preached to the team to fight apathy so the players
will not become complacent and will continue working to earn a spot in
next year’s championship game.
“Our goal is to have a good summer,” Moore said. “We didn’t get where we wanted to be without hard work.”
The Mountaineers currently have a 27-game home winning streak that dates back to the 2002 season.
They currently hold the nation’s longest Division I winning streak at 14 games.
With such success on the field, the Mountaineers have a target on their
back. Edwards said last year it was big because of winning its
first-ever national championship.
“This year, it’s even bigger,” he said.
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