Published: August 26, 2008 03:15 pm      

Cougs follow scrimmage script

Pauls Valley — The Ada Cougars looked about like head coach Matt Weber expected them to look during their first real scrimmage of the 2008 season Friday night in Pauls Valley.

The Ada first team offense was solid, but not spectacular while the first team defense swarmed to the ball and didn’t allow Duncan much breathing room in the three-way scrimmage that also included the host Panthers before a good crowd at inside Wacker Stadium.

“It was your typical, normal, first boring scrimmage,” Weber said.

Ada’s No. 1 defense started the scrimmage against Duncan’s No. 1 offense. The Demons were nearly held to a standstill for the 12-play series.

The Cougar offense, led by quarterback Qumain Black, then took over for 12 plays of its own. Black ran for 12 yards on three carries during that span and also completed a 9-yard pass to Will Robson. The drive also included several incomplete passes, a few dropped passes and a fumble.

Again, none of the above came as a surprise to Weber and company.

“You ask most people state-wide and that’s how it’s going to be. There’s not going to be a lot of running up and down the field anywhere. Things tend to be really sloppy on the offensive side of the ball and you usually have good intensity defensively,” he explained. “Our kids played hard. There wasn’t an effort problem.”

There were 62 plays ran before the Ada first team returned to the field. But this time Black and company ran just six of the 12 scheduled plays before he and most other starters came out for good. Black just missed connecting with receiver Eddie Brown for a long gain down the left sideline and had a 5-yard keeper.

“Offensively, we scripted the whole scrimmage. It doesn’t matter if it was third-and-one. If we had a pass play called, we were going to run it. Or if it was third-and-10 and we had a run play called, we were going to run it. We go straight off that script because we want to see our guys block different things and just evaluate kids,” Weber explained.

Ada’s No. 1 defense also played about half a series before coaches starting mixing and matching players. Duncan’s No. 1 offense nearly scored on one of the final plays of that particular series, but a touchdown pass was nullified by a penalty.

The best news from the scrimmage — there were no Cougar injuries to report.

“The main thing was that we came out of there with no injuries,” he said. “We still have a long way to go. But like I said, the most important thing was we got out of there healthy.”

Weber said his staff used the majority of the scrimmage as an evaluation tool for Ada’s younger players.

“We know from film last year that the handful of those kids with a lot of experience are going to be ready to play by Week 1. We’re trying to find the other handful that can play Week 1 and the guys who can back them up,” he said. “We plan on rotating a lot of guys in those first three weeks (non-district) so they can get some game experience.”

COUGAR NOTES: One of the longest plays of the scrimmage was a 46-yard pass from Ada reserve quarterback Brady Bowers to receiver Travis Cowan ... The Cougars will have a short week of practice ahead with 2 p.m. starts on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Class 5A power Guthrie visits the Craig McBroom Football Complex field Thursday night at 7 p.m. for Ada’s final preseason scrimmage.