By Andy Morphew

The Duncan BannerThe freshman and JV teams got all of their snaps in the scrimmage this past Thursday as the Duncan Demons showed off in a lightening shortened scrimmage at Cache with six varsity plays.

Heading to Cache to play in the only scrimmage of the 2021 season, the Demons had a good look at the younger part of their roster and a preview of their number one starters for 2021.Fourth-year head coach JT Cobble said it felt good to face another team again, even if it was for a short amount of time.“

The atmosphere over there was good, it was exciting. We had a lot of kids out for football and they were all chomping at the bit to get out there and get going while hitting someone in a different color jersey and helmet,” Cobble said. “We started out with freshmen, then went to JV … As with any first scrimmage, there were some bright spots and there are some spots that we have to fix.

We really have some kids at the freshman level that shined. We know we had some good freshmen, just didn’t know how many we had and at what spots.”Cobble said despite mother nature getting the best of the varsity on the road, this week will make up for it as the Demons see a little more prep than usual.“

We are going to have to do a lot more now than I had planned and I’m not a big fan of zero week, it just kind of worked out this year to get our 10 games in,” Cobble said. “I really like to have a second scrimmage this week to tighten some things up and get some special teams. So today (Friday) we are going to do a live game script with special teams on and off and coaches off the field and get it to as close as a game situation as we can.

You can never simulate game reps in practice, but we are going to try and get as close as we can and we will film it and then this weekend will be normal prep for game week.”With the amount of young players wearing the Duncan gear for the first time this next week in varsity action, Cobble said the coaching staff will do the best they can to prepare the team this week.“

We’ve got some kids that we will ask to play on Friday night and the downside — they are freshmen and the last game action they will have seen before Friday night under the lights will be eighth grade football on a Tuesday night,” Cobble said. “I don’t have to tell you that the jump from that will be astronomical and I get it, there will be some busts and be some nerves and some butterflies. We will try our best to simulate the best we can this week.”Even with only one scrimmage under the Demons’ belt, Cobble said the team eagerly awaits the first game.“

We had six reps of offense with our one’s last night before it got called and I think we had 80 yards of offense on six plays,” Cobble said.

“Two of those are from big two catches from a freshman and so there are some bright spots from the plays we saw last night (SIC). They will just have to get out there under the lights on Friday night and grow up a little bit and stay up with the speed of the game.”The first game will kickoff at 7 p.m. Aug. 27 at home against Wellington ISD out of Texas.

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