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Tribe a work in progress as football season nears

7/29/2016

By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor

The high school football season is four weeks away now.
That may seem like a long time, but new MCHS head football coach Jamie Egli and his staff know they have their work cut out for them prior to the Aug. 20 opening date against Collins High in the Recreation Bowl.
“Things are moving along pretty well right now,” Egli said this week. “But we’ve got a lot of new players and it’ll be a whole new world for some of them when we start live contact drills Aug. 1.

“We’re trying to get everything done we can using dummies and seven on seven drills but we’ll have plenty of adjustments to make when we go live.”

As the new coach said, things can look pretty good when you’re going through drills without contact and then you have to re-evaluate things after you see how the players adjust.

Still, the time has been valuable for the Indians as they learn a new offense and defense under the new head coach.
The Indians will have one chance to prep against an outside opponent when they host Rockcastle County in a scrimmage Aug. 11 at Cunningham Field.

That is the same day that students head back to the classroom in Montgomery County.

“We’ll play three quarters that night of a game-type scrimmage,” Egli said. “We’ll have kickoffs and punts and play like it’s really a game.
“Then we’ll have the freshmen and junior varsity guys play a quarter where we’ll control the scrimmage.”

Egli has been pleased with the turnout so far with more than 80 players, counting the freshmen, in camp. And there are more than 50 middle schoolers on that roster.
“We’ve got four coaches working on offense and four on defense and the kids have done a great job of staying focused and trying to learn what we’re trying to do,” Egli said.

The Middle School team will have a scrimmage on Aug. 4 at 6 p.m. at Cunningham Field against West Carter.

Eglis said he felt like the linebacker spot was the one position where the Indians are a little thin right now.
“I don’t think high school football teams ever have enough linebackers,” he noted.

The Indians have been beating the heat with nighttime practices in the last week.
“I feel really good about our attitudes and work ethic right now,” Egli said.
With Egli at the helm the Indians are adjusting to the Wing-T offense and a split four defense which are both new alignments for them.
That has been less of a problem in one way because so many key players graduated last season but the offense is a precise offense.

“We’re running it pretty good right now,” Egli added. “But again, we’re talking about doing things without contact. It’s a whole new game when you start hitting. Hopefully by then we’ll have enough confidence to continue to run it with precision.

The Indians will have five home games and five road games this season and their district foes include road games at Woodford County and Madison Southern along with a home game against Madison Southern.
The Indian schedule also includes an open date Sept. 30.