El Dorado put a bow on last week’s football practice with a Meet the Cats presentation Friday evening at Memorial Stadium. This took the place of the Purple-White scrimmage as all of the fall athletes were introduced along with cheerleaders and band members.
“It was good. We had a great turnout. I thought it was a good crowd. People are excited for football season to start,” said El Dorado coach Steven Jones. “It was a good turnout to see all the teams get introduced. We had all our fall sports teams there - cross country, tennis, golf, volleyball. We had our sports medicine trainers out there. We had the football teams, band, cheer. So, it was cool to have everybody out on the field. Everybody got introduced. It was a good time.”
The program also marked the end of the first week of full-contact football practice. Jones said the Wildcats did some moderate hitting.
“The way we practice, we stay up and protect each other,” he explained. “We’re not really full contact as far as tackling to the ground. We do a good job of keeping everybody up. The biggest goal, right now, is when we play Camden to have everybody healthy. So, we take care of each other.
“But, we had some physical practices and we had some good reps.”
He singled out the play of the defensive front.
“Our defensive line is going to be a really good group. Coach Johnson does a good job with those guys. Takoi Steward, Trey Cook, Javeon Carroll, Nic Wilson, we’ve got some depth there and some explosive guys.”
Special teams continued to be a focal point. Jones said senior Javier Rivas and sophomore Cooper Henry are still the top two kickers. Rivas is the leading candidate for kickoff duties while Henry has emerged as the top punter.
“Last week we installed all our special teams and then this week we were able to go back through all those units and clean up some of the mistakes we made the first week,” said Jones. “We wanted to get into the game prep week for North Little Rock, having confidence in knowing who’s going to be where as far as our units go and everything. Just polishing everything up. We feel like we’re still ahead of schedule and we’re ready to go.”
The Wildcats will host North Little Rock next Friday in a benefit game. Jones said the starting quarterback will be announced by then. Seniors Kolin Parker and Jon Brooks Elia have shared time at quarterback all summer.
“We’ll name a starter next week and, as far as going into a regular game prep, we’ll do what we would normally do on Monday, Tuesday and get into a game-week routine. So, we’ll have a starter next week.”
El Dorado held its Wildcat Scramble Golf Tournament Friday before the Meet the Cats in the evening. For Jones, it was a hectic week as the season rapidly approaches.
“It was a great week. We had our golf tournament today. We had Meet the Cats, two really big events to start the season. But, we’re glad to get those behind us so we can focus on North Little Rock and have a good week of preparing for them,” Jones said.
“I want to say thanks to everybody who showed up tonight to support all of our teams and to see all of our athletes get recognized before we get the season kicked off. You can tell people were excited about football. It’s a pretty good atmosphere when Mark Williams introduced the team and recognized the 6A defending state champions. That had a good sound to it.”
Due to concerns about the heat, on Monday the Wildcats will practice from 6:30 p.m. until 9 p.m.