Clarksville, TN – The Austin Peay State University (APSU) football team took the field for its second scrimmage of the 2019 preseason Saturday night at Fortera Stadium, a stark contrast to the hot, humid early mornings the Govs have battled through for the last few weeks.
This second scrimmage was all about pace, timing and precision—with the start of the regular season a mere 12 days away, the Govs have moved from learning to implementing on the field, which showed in Saturday’s exhibition.
Head Coach Mark Hudspeth on the second scrimmage
“A lot of logistics were covered tonight. That will be a big plus a week from Thursday, because that won’t be our first time doing any of this. I think that will be a big advantage for us, to have had a full-speed game experience.”
“I thought it was a much cleaner day. I was proud of the progress we made from week one to week two, are we ready yet, no were not. But we definitely took a lot of steps in the right direction, we came out relatively healthy, which is always a concern, so that was a plus. There’s a lot of things to work on, they’ll be a lot of positives too, as we now start to shift gears next week to our first game.”
“I think they’ve got a real good understanding of what we are trying to do right now, I think obviously the install now has been over for a few days. They are starting to have a much better grasp now of what we are going to do on both sides of the ball and naturally reacting much quicker, but there’s still some work to do, still trying to create some depth.”
Offensive Observations
“I think that our guys are playing at a high level right now. We came out a lot better this scrimmage than we did the last one, and that’s something that we challenged them to do. We’ve got to maintain that throughout the course of an entire game, and that’s something we’ll strive to do.” – Tim Zetts, offensive coordinator
“Everything we do is origin-based. We have a set of rules to always fall back on, and that’s one of the things we do because of the different scenarios and looks that we get. We have to fall back on the original teachings that we implement with those guys, and they’re seeing that and it’s paying off for those guys and you can see that in the way they move the ball.” – Tim Zetts, offensive coordinator
Defensive Decisions
“Our guys are playing with a swagger right now, which is awesome. We are having fun playing the game which is huge. The Kids come out every day and go to work. Tonight we saw that and were able to get some takeaways, take shots on goal, and get the ball out. And we have to get the ball back to our offense, our offense can do a great job scoring points, we have to continue to play with that mentality of fast, family always stays together.” – Defensive Coordinator Mark Powell
“I thought defensively, I was real proud with the way they flew around, I thought they did a really good job creating turnovers. They were true takeaways by the defense.” – Head Coach Mark Hudspeth
“We are going to get back, we’re going to learn from this. We still gave up too many explosive plays, and now we have to do a great job fixing those. We have got to make sure we stay with what we do and what we are great at. That’s the thing we have to make sure as a defensive staff and myself, we are not going to call something we are not comfortable with and we are going to make sure our kids are comfortable with it so they can lineup, play fast, and play physical.” – Defensive Coordinator Mark Powell
