LAURINBURG — The Scotland High School football team hosted Purnell Swett on Wednesday in their first pre-season 7-on-7 drills.
The drills are geared towards helping skill players on both sides of the ball with the offensive and defensive lines not participating.
On the offensive side, quarterbacks and wide receivers work on their timing and route running. For the defense, the drills help linebackers and corner backs work on covering different routes and learning how to read the quarterback.
The Scots are replacing quarterback Sergio Gibson, wide receives Barry Campbell, Alston Smith and Ty McLaurin on the offense while the entire Scots secondary — Tyleak Campbell, Smith, Amir McNeill and Donta Green all graduated.
During the drills the Scots rotated between senior quarterback Desmond Davis, a Purnell Swett transfer, who did get reps last season as the Scots back-up quarterback. Davis finished the season 6 of 9 passing for 68 yards and one touchdown.
Jamari Wall, the JV starting quarterback last season, also took reps on Wednesday. Both Davis and Wall overshot several receivers, including returning starter Trey Dixon, but did look crisp in their reads at other times.
Scots head coach Richard Bailey told WLNC that his team will never dazzle people during 7-on-7 drills because they are more of a run oriented team, but was pleased with the progress he saw.
“It’s hard to really get a true evaluation with seven-on-seven, but at least we got some work in,” Bailey said. “We’re never going to look so good in the 7-on-7 match ups, that’s not really what we do but it was good. At the quarterback spot we have to get better at reading things and knowing who we’re throwing to now we’re guessing a little too much. Wide outs we have to work on things like route running, and this season we’re getting our running backs involved in the passing game a little bit more.”
The Scots are deep at the running back position again this season with the highly touted Division I recruit Zamir White and SEC Offensive Player of the Year Syheam “Smiley” McQueen as the two featured backs. Khalil Smith will also return for the Scots in the backfield along with two running backs from last season’s JV squad that have been called up.
McQueen had six receptions last season for 79 yards and one touchdown while White had two receptions for 21 yards and one touchdown. The Scots dynamic duo combined to rush for 3,010 yards and 49 touchdowns during the 2016 season.
Bailey said with the Scots being thinner at wide receiver, he is getting the running backs more involved in the passing game — making them that much harder to cover.
“Smiley is a little used to it from last season, but Zamir is having to learn how to run routes like a wide out and he is more than capable it’s just not something we’ve asked him to do a whole lot,” he said. “A lot of good things, but a whole lot to work on too.”
Even though the defensive line was not part of Wednesday’s 7-on-7 drills the Scots will be replacing two key members of their defensive line with the graduation of Karfa Kaba and Octavis McLaurin. The only defensive line starter returning for the Scots will be T.J. Smith. During his junior year, Smith had 61 solo tackles, one fumble recovery and 15 quarterback sacks.
The entire linebacking corps for the Scots will return this season, led by senior linebackers Javon Ratliffe and Chris Williams. The Scots defense allowed just over 10 points per game, with 16 interceptions, seven fumbles and 59 quarterback sacks.
“We’re inexperienced a little in the secondary and we’re trying to find our way there,” said Bailey. “I feel really good about our linebackers, but our secondary has some work to do.”
The Scots finished last season 14-1 overall and 5-0 in the Southeastern conference to win their sixth straight SEC championship. The Scots season ended in the 4A Eastern Regional Finals in December with a 27-7 loss to Cape Fear at Pate Stadium.
The Fighting Scots will have four days of practice next week, with another seven-on-seven on Tuesday at Dillon High School. The first North Carolina High School Athletic Association dead period begins on July 3, the Scots will practice the week of July 10 before a second NCHSAA dead period. The first official day of practice for football, according to the NCHSAA is July 31.
Amber Hatten can be reached at 910-506-3170.
