The final tune-up for the regular season is behind the Lampasas Badgers, as they scrimmaged China Spring on the road last Thursday night.
The two teams followed a similar script to what was used for the Badgers’ scrimmage against Gatesville the week before. The teams alternated playing offense and defense for a set number of plays on multiple different series.
Following that, there was a short period for the kickers to work on kickoffs, then the teams played a 15-minute running-clock live quarter.
The score was not kept during the live quarter, but the game went back and forth – with some mixed results for the Badgers.
Head coach Troy Rogers said his team definitely has things to clean up in getting ready for Fredericksburg this Friday, but he did like some of what he saw against the Cougars.
“I thought we were more physical today than we were last week, and I’d just like to see that continue through the season,” Rogers said. “We just have to eliminate the selfinflicted penalties. And I thought we would do some good things, and then all of a sudden there would be one [bad] thing, and that one thing would be a big thing.”
The coach added that some of the touchdowns China Spring scored during the scrimmage were big, long, explosive plays. Lampasas needs to make sure it can eliminate those big plays moving forward and force the opponent to sustain a drive to score points.
“Offensively, we have to get some traction and pick up some first downs, and I thought we did that a little bit. We just ran out of plays,” Rogers said. “We were on an eight-play count and a six-play count and if you got inside the 20, you got to continue. But if you don’t then you don’t. And so I think there were a couple of times we were right there on the cusp of getting there, and we just had to turn it over.”
The coach also mentioned that he thought his team got a little banged up in the game in what was a physical matchup against a good football team.
He did not offer specifics about potential injuries, but a couple of players did go down during the course of the action.
An offensive highlight of the scrimmage came on the final possession of the live quarter when the Badgers took over with about three minutes to go and ran a very efficient two-minute drill drive. They punched in a touchdown as time expired.
That possession was a great way to end the scrimmage and showed some glimpses of what the Badgers can do on the offensive side of the ball.
“I thought Coach [T.J.] Cleavinger did a good job of getting the ball moved around and guys made plays, and you got to see one glimpse of Bryson [Roberts] running the football,” the head coach said of the final drive. “It was a good glimpse, and we like to see more of that. We’ve kind of kept him handcuffed a bit obviously the last two weeks, but those chains are coming off this week, and we’re going to go play ball to win.”
Rogers has always allowed his coordinators to call the offensive plays during scrimmages, so Cleavinger had that responsibility the past two weeks. But as the regular season kicks off, Rogers will be the primary play caller on offense.
The Badgers will head to Fredericksburg on Friday for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff. A more detailed preview of the contest with the Battlin’ Billies will appear in Friday’s edition of the newspaper.
