By Daucy C. Crizer
Special to The News

HOUSTON – Running back Devon Simmons capped off Nederland’s lone scoring drive in the game portion of Friday’s scrimmage at Sheldon C.E. King High School with an acrobatic catch in the corner of the end zone on a perfectly executed fade route pass from quarterback Blaysin Fernandez.

“It’s always good to get another color on the other side, especially for the kids,” said Nederland head coach Monte Barrow. “You’re always anxious to see their reaction, especially guys that haven’t played on Friday night. We saw a lot of mistakes, which we expected to see at this time. The biggest thing is to make sure we go back to work and correct them in practice next week.”

The Bulldogs opened the game portion of the scrimmage with a 75-yard scoring drive in just six plays. The biggest play was a swing pass from Fernandez to Simmons that covered 57 yards to the C.E. King 4-yard line. Those two hooked up again two plays later on the scoring strike.

C.E. King responded with a scoring drive on their first possession of the game portion. The Panthers ran an up-tempo version of the spread offense with little time between plays. Their scoring drive covered 70 yards over seven plays, featuring four runs and three passes. The quarterback capped the drive with a 29-yard scamper that tied the score at 7-7. Neither team was able to mount another scoring drive.

“They (C.E. King) went fast and their tempo between plays is not something that we can simulate in practice and it caught up to us,” Barrow said. “I think most of the time that we gave up big yardage, and we’ll look at the film, was because we were misaligned and not in the right position to give ourselves a chance to make a play.”

The Bulldogs and Panthers started the evening with two sessions of scripted plays. Nederland’s first team offense ran eight plays, followed by C.E. King’s first team running an equal number of plays.

The second team squads for both team’s followed with the same format.
“During the controlled part of the scrimmage, I thought they took it to us pretty good,” said Barrow. “We challenged them when we went to the game portion and we came out that first series and drove straight down the field for a score. I liked how the kids responded.”

During the game portion of the scrimmage, Fernandez completed 3 of 6 passes for 73 yards. Simmons caught two of the passes for 60 yards and Kevon Latulas added a 13-yard grab. Simmons also rushed three times for 21 yards.

The Bulldogs were also able to get some action for their two backup quarterbacks, Bryce McMorris and Marshall Lange. McMorris completed 3 of 4 passes for 19 yards.

Defensively, the Bulldogs gave up some big plays, both in the controlled part and game portion of the scrimmage. The Panthers appeared to have an edge in overall team speed, especially at the skill positions, which gave Nederland some problems. However, the Bulldogs exhibited a bend, don’t break mentality and made enough plays to keep the Panthers out of the end zone for most of the night.

“I thought our defense stepped up and made a big stop to keep them out of the end zone late in the scrimmage. We thought our guy made a good defensive play on a pass in the end zone, but the referee saw it different and gave them four more downs from the 2 yard line,” said Barrow. “Our defense had a choice right there and they chose to dig in and kept them out of the end zone four straight plays.”

“I liked the way we came out in the live portion,” said Barrow on his thoughts about the scrimmage. “We can’t get off the bus, especially in a district game, and sleep walk through the first quarter by any means. I thought they brought the fight to us in the controlled part and we decided in the game portion to fight back a little bit. Overall, I’m pleased with what we saw and there’s plenty to work on.”

After serving as Nederland’s offensive coordinator for several years, Friday was Barrow’s first experience as the head coach. That transition was not lost on him as he is preparing for the start of the regular season as much as the kids are this year.

“You catch yourself making sure you’re paying attention to different things,” said Barrow. “You have to be involved in situations and calling time outs. I have to be more aware when the defense is on the field. It’s nothing that you don’t think about and prepare in your mind for. Hopefully, and just like we expect our players to do, I’ll get better at it as the season goes along.”