By Jason Pugh, Northwestern State Associate Athletic Director for External Relations; featured photo by Chris Reich, NSU Photographic Services
NATCHITOCHES – After his team’s lone Saturday scrimmage of fall camp, Northwestern State’s Blaine McCorkle was a pleased coach.
Both sides of his Demon team had their moments in the 85-snap scrimmage that took up the majority of the 11th practice of fall camp on a warm morning inside Turpin Stadium.
“A lot of guys got a lot of good work in today,” McCorkle said. “This is the last true, big scrimmage we’ll have. Next week, we’ll have a scrimmage, but it will be more game rehearsal, situations, a slower pace. Guys got some good things on film today, and as a staff, we’ll be anxious to watch it. It was practice 11, and guys continue to work hard. We haven’t had that lull yet, knock on wood. That’s pretty rare. That part, I’m very pleased with.”
McCorkle and his staff put the Demons through numerous situations as they marched the field, starting with the offense opening a drive at its 2-yard line.
Immediately, the NSU offense delivered a desired result as fullback Matthew Broad started the day with a 21-yard burst on the first play from scrimmage. The first-team offense, behind Broad’s run, picked up three first downs on its first four plays of the scrimmage, eventually moving the ball past midfield.
“That’s two scrimmages in a row the defense has started slow,” McCorkle said. “That’s a concern as something we have to work on. When they get rolling, the play fast and physical and tough to deal with. They just can’t start slow. We’re by no means a good enough football team to roll it out there and ease into a game. We have to show up ready ever day. That’s something we have to correct in a hurry.”
While the defense may have started slowly, it forced three interceptions – two during the main portion of the scrimmage and one during the rookie portion.
Caesar Magee III and Cam Hardy collected the interceptions during the veterans’ portion while David Spears Jr. came up with the interception to snuff out the rookie offense’s first drive.
Hardy intercepted JT Fayard in the red zone to snuff out another solid drive.
“It came from having good eyes,” Hardy said. “I was sitting there, being patient with my feet. The D-line had a good rush, they got the ball out really quick and I made a good play.”
Just like the defense bouncing back from its slow start, Fayard responded with three touchdown passes in the late portion of the scrimmage.
Fayard, a redshirt freshman, threw for 99 yards and those three scores while Kekahi Graham and Quaterius Hawkins threw for 85 combined yards. As a whole, the Demons were balanced offensively, rushing for 198 yards and throwing for 197.
“It was a sign of being able to bounce back,” Fayard said of his touchdown passes, which covered 21 yards to Chance Newman, 6 yards to Ty Moore and 12 yards on a fourth-and-goal strike to Amaaz Eugene.
“I’m very thankful for our coaching staff and everyone involved to know and understand adversity is going to come. When adversity comes, our rule is 90-10. Ten percent of it is the adversity, but 90 percent is how we recover. Our coaching staff believes in us, and we did an amazing job bouncing back.”
The offense finished the day with three scores in as many tries when starting from the 3-yard line.
The final score came from Kennieth Lacy, who plunged in from a yard out amidst a scrum of players that saw Fayard fly in over the top to try to help push the pile into the end zone.
“It’s always good to finish in the red zone late in a scrimmage in fall camp, because that’s when you’re the most tired,” McCorkle said. “That’s when it matters most. We made a couple of mistakes offensively down there that we have to correct. We have to have better focus in those situations. That’s part of training camp and learning who you can trust. Some guys show up big and some revel themselves.”
Scoring Plays
Kyron Angeletti 3 run (Evan Kern kick)
Chance Newman 21 pass from JT Fayard (Kern kick)
Reed Honshtein 42 FG
Ty Moore 6 pass from Fayard (Kern kick)
Amaaz Eugene 12 pass from Fayard (no try)
SirMichael Veasley 3 run (no try)
Newman 3 run (no try)
Kennieth Lacy 1 run (no try)
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing (40-198, 4 TD): Jeremiah James 3-35; Veasley 6-32, TD; Kennieth Lacy 8-27, TD; Quaterius Hawkins 2-27; Matthew Broad 1-21; Abram Johnston 3-18; Zay Davis 4-9; Ryan Tyler 3-8; Angeletti 3-7, TD; Ray Mckneely-Harris 4-7; Newman 3-7, TD
Passing (24-34-3, 197, 3 TD): JT Fayard 10-13-1 99, 3 TDs; Kekahi Graham 9-13-1 63; Hawkins 3-4-0 22; Johnston 2-4-1 12
Receiving: Eugene 5-32, TD; Newman 4-46, TD; Kareame Cotton Jr. 4-42; Ke’nard King 3-14; Joseph Moreland 2-7; Davis 1-21; Camryn Davis 1-12; Gage Ridgel 1-12; Moore 1-6, TD; Travon Jones 1-5; Ian Vigo 1-0.