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 The Railsplitters debuted a new offense, new defense, new hustle,
even new helmets.
Coach Seth Bass said his team showed a new desire during the first
scrimmage in front of the home crowd, even if they did look a bit
sloppy.
“We did a lot of good things,” Coach Bass said. “We made a lot of
mistakes. I don’t know that we handled being in front of a crowd as
well as I would’ve liked.”
Bass said his big take-away from the first contact scrimmage of the
year is tempo.
“Our tempo is the big thing…our tempo is much slower than it should
be,” Bass added.
The new-look Railer offense tried to be quick, and tried to add some
new wrinkles when moving the ball.
Senior Quarterback Garrett Aeilts said there are still some kinks to
work out, but he’s happy with his offense’s performance.
“It’s taken some getting used to,” Aeilts said after leading a
touchdown drive Friday night. “But now you can really tell everyone
is getting the hang of it to it. I’m getting the hang of all the
calls and the motion. It’s really nice to see it all come together.”
Aeilts returns under center this year, but the triple running back
spread from last year has been replaced by a hybrid H-Back and a lot
of different looks.
Coach Bass said the new game plan is a work in progress.
“It seems like we stopped ourselves offensively,” Bass said. “I
would feel better if the defense stymied us. But it definitely
looked like we shot ourselves in the foot.”
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Junior H-Back Andrew Yount fired one of those shots, fumbling the
ball just inches from the goal line.
The Splitter defense is trying to shed last year’s worst in the
conference moniker.
Senior linebacker Ryan Rutschke led the defensive squad Friday night
with a handful of tackles.
“Our defense is a lot faster (this year). A lot better. We’re
actually tackling,’ Rutschke said.
Bass said his team now has one week to increase the temp and
eliminate the little mistakes that popped-up Friday night.
The Railsplitters open the season Friday night in Springfield
against Southeast High School.
[Benjamin Yount]
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