With the season open two-and-a-half weeks away, the Western Illinois football team took another big step toward Week 1, hosting an intra-squad scrimmage on Monday night. Coach Myers Hendrickson and his staff kept the scrimmage as close to game-like as possible, putting players through the paces.
"The big piece is we're about two-and-a-half weeks from Week 1, when we like to scrimmage and see some live action," Hendrickson said. "I think getting some Missouri Valley officials out here was big, so we can simulate a real game and real-game situations throughout the whole scrimmage."
Simulating game scenarios was the major factor in Monday's work as the offense, defense and special teams were put in different stress situations with an opportunity to make an impression on the coaching staff and their teammates.
"You saw a lot of situations, from backed up to goal line to PAT and field goals, then you saw a big special teams chunk with punt return, field goals from all over the place, some more kickoffs, so it was good working a lot of situations, two-minute drill, we really aim to get a lot opportunities early in the game, late in the game, simulate four quarters, we even saw two-point plays at the end," Hendrickson said.
Not only was situational work important to the coaching staff, but so was repetition for every player on the roster. Not only did the two-deep get plenty of snaps, but everyone on the roster found themselves on the field to have their mettle tested.
"This program is all about competition and building depth, we shout pound the rock every single day, so we're trying to get better at all 11 positions, offense, defense, special teams," Hendrickson said. "I think to do that, you have to develop depth to get good at every position, in the Missouri Valley you have to be deep at every position and we're starting to work our direction that way.
"You saw a lot of players, throughout the scrimmage, late in the scrimmage making plays on both sides of the ball, offense, defense and special teams, which was big to see."
Not only did coaches like what they saw up and down the roster but also the energy from the squad. The scrimmage put the offense against the defense and with big plays being made on both sides of the ball, Hendrickson was most impressed with the enthusiasm the sidelines had for players on the field, no matter what who was making plays.
"I'd rather tell them to settle down than to get excited, offensively, we want to tell them to slow down, we shouldn't have to tell them to speed up," the coach said. "We saw a lot of great excitement, energy on our sideline from both sides, offense, defense and special teams we saw some good things today.
"I think competition is continuing to peak, I think every day the competition is peaking, we talk results will come from that, we don't know when it's going to come but competition keeps peaking and iron sharpens iron and we're getting better at every spot and that's all we can ask for right now with our program getting better at every position and getting ready for Tennessee-Martin."
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