Fans wanting to get an early glimpse of what Elliot Jacobs has been up to since becoming Parkers Chapel’s football coach will be able to do so tonight starting at 5:30 p.m., as the Trojans will take the field for their spring game.
Admission to the game is either bath towels or OxiClean detergent.
Jacobs took over the helm of the program in January after Jacob Midyett stepped down after two years on the job.
So what can fans expect tonight?
“What we’re going to do is we’re going to put what we feel is our best 11 on defense, put a scout offense out there, run a certain amount of plays, and switch over to offense and do the same thing with our ones out there against our scout defense,” Jacobs said. “We’ll get back to defense with what we feel are our twos against the scout offense, then we’ll go back with the two offense, and there will just be a set number of plays they run.”
Jacobs said there was one thing he was looking to see out of his team.
“Effort,” Jacobs said. “Number one is the kids’ effort and how they approach this, even though it’s not a game. Their effort and intensity needs to be as much. We won’t run that many plays, so we want to see people flying around and having fun.”
Although Jacobs has only recently had his full compliment of players with baseball ending, he said practices have been going well, adding that the Trojans also have 34 players out right now.
“They’ve all been showing up. They’ve been buying in to what we’re trying to do. We’ve got about 34 out right now, so we feel comfortable going into the fall with 34 kids,” Jacobs said. “Football is one of those sports where it doesn’t matter how many you get, no coach is going to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got too many kids on the team.’ It makes practices a lot easier. We can go 11-on-11 a lot of times.
“The kids are flying around. They’re liking what we’re doing. We don’t spend no more than two hours practicing, but we bust our butts in those two hours. The kids have really caught on to that. They know when they come out there, they’re going to get their work in and go home. We’re not going to waste their time, and they’re not going to waste ours.”
So far, everything has been going according to plan for Jacobs.
“It’s going good. We like the direction it’s going,” Jacobs said. “The kids are buying in to our offensive and defensive philosophies. Right now, it’s them learning the system, and us learning where kids are best going to help us out. What I’ve told them is we’re starting the season with 35 kids, I don’t want to go to the first game and only 12 play. I want multiple kids to get reps in games, but the only way they can do that is to show us at practice that they deserve those reps.”