El Dorado wrapped up the first week of football practice Friday. Coach Steven Jones said it was a productive week.
“I feel like we got a lot accomplished this week in all three phases of the game. We spent a lot of time on special teams (Friday). We have all of our units installed with two groups. Right now, we feel like we’re a little bit ahead,” said Jones. “Offensively, we’ve been able to see some different looks from the defensive side as far as what we’re going against. We’re starting to get ready for what we’re going to see from opponents. We’re getting a scout team look instead of going against each other. Obviously, there’s no contact this week so we’re having to use blocking dummies and shields and all that stuff. It’s been interesting but we’ve been able to get some good looks offensively.
“On the defensive side, it seems like they’re going back through everything they worked through in July. Both sides of the ball seem to be ahead of where I expected us to be, right now.”
The Wildcats have identified the key components of the kicking game in snap-hold-kick.
“I feel really good about our kicking game. We have two kickers that have really stepped up. Senior Javier Rivas has a good leg on kickoff and has shown good accuracy on field goals. Cooper Henry, a sophomore, has really stepped up. He’s done a good job at kickoff, field goal and I expect him to be our punter when we go with a punt unit. Javier is likely to be the kickoff guy. Him and Cooper are still competing for placekicker for field goals. Cooper is more of a natural punter,” said Jones.
“Our holders from the last two seasons are still on our team. Kolin Parker held two years ago. DeMarcus Young held last year. Those guys have experience with that. Jon Brooks Elia can hold. And then from the deep snapper we have about four different guys that we feel like can get the job done. We have two that are really neck and neck competing for that first spot.”
Next week, teams will be allowed to go full-contact in practices. The Wildcats probably won’t do a lot of game-style hitting, however.
“Not a ton, as far as a full contact practice goes,” said Jones. “We really won’t go to the ground any next week. To be honest, we really don’t ever do that from a safety standpoint. We’re to a point now, we feel like we can practice at what we call a thud tempo, which is, you’re still being physical, you’re still wrapping up and making a tackle or a block, but you’re taking care of your teammates and you’re not getting on the ground and you’ve got a pretty short whistle.”
The first week of full contact is normally a big week for the offensive and defensive linemen. Jones said those groups will get some attention.
“Hopefully see some depth emerge. We feel like at this point we know who our (defensive) and (offensive) lines are going to be. We’re still trying to add some depth at those spots,” he said.
“I feel like we’re ahead of where I expected us to be. I think install-wise, we have everything in that we should. Moving forward into next week, we can still do what we planned, which is polish up since spring football.”