HAMMOND – The Southeastern Louisiana football team held its first scrimmage of spring practice Saturday morning, running just over 100 plays at Strawberry Stadium.
The scrimmage put a cap on the initial first two weeks of spring drills. The Lions had highlights Saturday morning on both sides of the ball.
Early in the scrimmage, the defense dominated, but the Lion offense eventually got going as the morning progressed. Quarterbacks
D'Shaie Landor and JT Jackson each threw touchdown passes. Landor and
Eugene Bethea both rushed for touchdowns. Bethea,
Kaelyn Henderson and
Keith Fulton all ran the ball effectively for SLU.
"Early on it was a little tough for the offense to get going," Southeastern head coach
Ron Roberts said. "But we got better as the day went along which is good to see. We were very pleased with how we ran the ball as the scrimmage progressed and our offensive line did a nice job being physical late in the scrimmage. We just moved Kaelyn to running back last week and he did an excellent job running the football."
On the other side of the ball, Southeastern's defensive unit forced their offensive counterparts into eight three-and-outs on the day. While the Lion defense did not force any turnovers, it was credited with seven sacks – four by linebacker
Sean Clavelle. In the kicking game,
Jonathan Tatum was 4-for-6 on field goal attempts, connecting from 41 and 39 yards, as well as making a pair of 38-yard tries.
Overall, Roberts is pleased with his team's progress through the first two weeks of spring practice. But, the Lions' fifth-year head coach also sees plenty to work on as the team work's to the culmination of spring drills – the Spring Game on April 16.
"Offensively we're doing some new things, so we're seeing guys still trying to get comfortable with our system," Roberts said. "I thought we were physical on offense today and (offensive coordinator)
Matt Barrett is doing a great job getting guys to buy into what we're trying to get done. We need our wide receivers to continue to improve. We had a couple of dropped balls today and that's something that cost us in the past and we can't have that.
"Defensively, I thought we played really well today early," Roberts continued. "But when we got tired late in the day, we started making mental mistakes. We have to clean that up as well."
Southeastern will return to the practice field on Tuesday at 4 p.m. The team will hold its next scrimmage at 4 p.m. on Thursday.
