Strong showing for Warhorses at Central Catholic scrimmage

The first of two scrimmages scheduled for the Devine Warhorses this season had them traveling into San Antonio to take on the Central Catholic Buttons at Bob Benson Stadium last Friday evening. The Horses were able to practice against unfamiliar competition for the first time this season, with another scrimmage set against Navarro this Thursday in Devine.
“Well, we finally have a scrimmage under our belt,” Head Coach Paul Gomez began his weekly recap stating. “We went against a very good Central Catholic team that we had little to no information about and competed well. We found out a little bit about ourselves.”
Devine normally hosts an intersquad scrimmage at Warhorse Stadium for the first scrimmage but took a different route this year playing another school instead. Home teams determine the flow, and it was much different from what the Horses are accustomed.
The usual scrimmage format has each team taking 10-15 plays in an offensive or defensive segment, marching the ball up and down the field, and resetting at the 30-yard line if there is a touchdown, turnover, or a failed fourth down attempt.
“Although the schedule of the scrimmage was different then we have been used to but I feel like we gained a lot by going through the drills that Central Catholic chose to do,” Gomez said about the unfamiliar rotations. “The 7 on 7 really helped our secondary defensively, and it also benefited our offensive backs and receivers.”
“While the skill positions were practicing through 7 on 7 competition, the offensive line was doing 1 on 1 pass rush vs an opponent which was a great learning tool. Our boys really competed well for our first time doing this. Each team had four goal line plays for the first team, three for second team, and then moved to red zone offense and defense for a set number of plays, and last we moved to 40-yard line open field set plays. Even though it was a controlled scrimmage where we had three downs to get a first down, they chose to put the ball back on the 40 instead of moving down the field. It definitely gave us a look at where we are offensively and defensively,” Gomez explained.
Central Catholic had nine returning starters from their 2020 team, and they added a very good running back transfer from San Antonio Marshall who can be very special for them. They have a big line with two 6’6″ tackles, and their quarterback has already committed to play football at Army.
“Their defense has really good size and are very quick so it was definitely a great test for us. I think our boys competed well on Friday. Factor in the Central Catholic is a much bigger school with an enrollment of more than 550 boys. This allows Central to have a defensive team and an offensive team, while at Devine our players play both offense and defense. Playing both sides of the ball this early in the season, it was easy to see why some of our boys ran out of gas in the end.”
“We were one block away from having some really big gains on several occasions. Our execution will improve once our players are more familiar with our new offensive schemes. We gave all of our backs an opportunity to run with the ball, as well as the opportunity to make crucial blocks. Our receivers, tight ends and backs were all involved in our passing game so everyone got film action that we were able to evaluate,” Gomez stated about the offensive side of the ball.
“Defensively,” Gomez continued, “I think we did really well against Central’s big play offense. Every mistake we made is a fixable one as effort was not an issue with us. We had some good hits on defense and did a good job covering their receivers. I think we played the screens as well as we could without being able to scout their tendencies ahead of time.”
Coach speak
Defensive Coordinator and outside linebacker coach George Villa—I thought as a whole, we had a quality first scrimmage. We did some very good things and saw some things that we need to correct sooner than later. We had a few miss alignments early with our defensive front but fixed those quickly. We had some bright spots as well with some young and unproven kids. We are excited about our growth. I was most proud of our effort and attitude. I do not think we had any “no efforts” when grading our defense!!
As for the outside backers, I thought we had a good first scrimmage overall. There was a lot of technique stuff that needs to be fixed but our effort and attitude were great.
Tight end and defensive end coach Scott Taylor—Split ends Peyton Carr and Caden Hanson ran good routes and blocked decent, which are both important to having our offense reach the potential we think it can. It was a good starting point for the year, and I am looking forward to seeing the improvements we make going into the Navarro scrimmage.
Defensive end wise, it was also a good place to start as I was impressed by most of what we did throughout the course of the scrimmage. Everything that we messed up on is correctable and our effort was good. I especially liked what I got out of Aaron Bonilla.
Running back coach Evan Eads—The scrimmage allowed us to see every back run the ball, run routes, and block against a quality opponent. We did not block up to our potential. We ran hard. We ran good routes. It was a good scrimmage. We are excited about this year. We will get better.
Tight end coach Bart Oropeza—My tight ends need to and will continue to practice hard. There are certain techniques that we need to focus on and improve. The effort and dedication is there we just need to improve every time that we step on the practice field. We will get better!
By Jerel Beaty
Staff Writer