Jaguars Prepare For Saturday Scrimmage
The Jaguar football team held their final workout prior to its second scrimmage of preseason camp as they will be participating in off the field team building exercises on Friday.
Practice opened with individual and positional drills. This was followed by kickoff coverage for the early special teams work. Next, the Jags returned to positional drills before the offense came together to work as a team prior to a breather for the players.
After the break, they worked on 7-on-7 drills prior to group work with the offense and defense working against each other for over half-an-hour. They ended practice with special teams work on punts and punt returns.
The Jags go into the season with their largest and deepest offensive line unit ever in the teams short history. Shaun Artz, Drew Dearman, Chris May and Ucambre Williams are all returning letterwinners with Matt Calcagnini who also saw some action during the 2012 campaign. Melvin Meggs will miss the 2013 season due to injury, but just a year ago that news could have been devastating.
Including the loss of Meggs, the Jaguar offense will be without stallwart starter Trey Clark who started every single game for his four seasons at South Alabama at center. Clark graduated last year and now Coach Joey Jones and coach Robert Matthews will have to fill that position with another player.
Last season, Ucambre Williams was injured but by then they had developed some depth and Chris May was able to step in and fill his shoes. May was even selected to the Sun Belt Conference All-Freshman Team by beat writers.
Daniel Aust, Steven Foster, Clay Machen and Joseph Scelfo will all look to get playing time this season as they all sat out redshirting. Each of them were ranked with multiple stars by recruiting services across the nation.
Along with experience and depth, they also bring size with them. Among the linemen mentioned, Daniel Aust is the lightest weighing 280-pounds. May, Calcagnini, Scelfo, Shane Doty and Williams all weigh in at 290 with Dearman and Machen both weighing 310 with Darius McKeller topping the scales at 325.
While sheer size is not the only requirement for the offensive line. With more athletic defensive linemen and linebackers playing the game, the Jags are looking for leaner, quicker big guys for the offensive line.
With the offensive line solidifying, they only need to continue to improve their play and stay healthy for the season. Matthews’ spread attack will require them to move and move quickly. The coaches want to run the offense at a higher tempo than they did last season. In less than two weeks we will get to see if they are able to do just that.
The scrimmage will be held at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on Saturday from 9-11am and it is open to the public.