JOHNSON CITY – The Greeneville football team got back on the gridiron on Thursday evening for its first taste of competition coming out of the TSSAA’s two-week dead period.
The Greene Devils went to Science Hill to take on the Hilltoppers, Dobyns-Bennett and Elizabethton in 7-on-7 scrimmages, and head coach Eddie Spradlen came away pleased with the plays his team made.
“I feel like we came out here and had a lot of energy. Guys were flying around and we made a lot of plays,” Spradlen said. “We played some good competition today, and I think that makes us better. That’s what I’m looking for, how we compete. We want to see how they respond when a play doesn’t go their way.”
With the regular season just over a month away the Greene Devils are focusing on getting better every day. For Spradlen that starts with maintaining intensity in the weight room to make sure his squad has the strength and endurance to play in November.
“We are going to keep grinding in the weight room. A lot of teams start to put that to the side right now, but we are going to work as hard we can in there,” Spradlen said. “They have had a really good week coming back from the dead period. We came in at 7 AM to lift this morning and we came over her at 6 PM. That’s a long day, but I’m excited to see out kids come out with energy and play hard.”
The biggest question Greeneville will be looking to answer before it takes on Morristown West on August 21 is who will be receiving snaps at quarterback on that first first down of the season. Whoever gets the job will be following Mr. Football winner Caden Baugh who is hurling the leather at VMI.
On Thursday the Greene Devils used four different quarterbacks with senior Parker Quillen and Kaine Ricker taking most of the reps with the first group. Both delivered a handful of big throws against some of the region’s top defenses, but Spradlen knows that the pass-only scrimmage with no contact won’t determine who gets the starting job. Once the pads go on at the start of August running the ball from behind center will go a long in determining who will best lead the offense.
“We used four different guys at quarterback today. They all got a lot of reps today, and I think we can win with all of them. They all know how to run this offense,” Spradlen said. “It’s exciting to have guys competing for that job. Somebody is going to have set themselves apart. I’ve told them all that we are going to have to see what happens when the pads come on, and for this offense to be successful the quarterback has to run the ball. We’re not going to ask the quarterback to run people over, but they have to be able to make the right read when we run it.”
Whoever is throwing the ball for Greeneville in the fall will have one of the most dangerous targets around to look for in Taren Claridy. The rising senior looked like the best player on the field on Thursday among all four schools. He ran by corners, went over the top of safeties and made tough catches over the middle. The Greene Devils are excited about what he can offer in the upcoming season.
“Taren Claridy is a special player. We have to get the ball to him and let something happen. He can go up and get it as good as anybody. We ae going to put him everywhere. We will put in the backfield some in two-back sets. We have a lot of skill kids I’m really excited about,” Spradlen said.
In addition to Claridy Greeneville got some impressive catches from Braylen Kidwell and Amir Knight. Defensively the Greene Devils worked in new faces with some key veterans returning, but they did a good job of keeping all three opponents out of the endzone in the passing scrimmage.
