Both Vian, Roland football coaches pleased with their team’s scrimmage

TAHLEQUAH — Both Vian Wolverines coach Gary Willis and new Roland Rangers coach Greg Wise were pleased with their respective team’s Friday night scrimmage at Sequoyah-Tahlequah with Tulsa Holland Hall. However, for different reasons.

Wright

The Vian offense was on full throttle as in a simulated half against Holland Hall, Masyn Wright caught an 80-yard touchdown pass from Cash Trammell as well as scoring on an 8-yard run.

In a 10-play scrimmage set against the host Indians, Wright scored twice and Jacob Brannick and “Boomer” Murphy each hit paydirt once.

“We scored probably about 20 times in the entire scrimmage,” Willis said. “It was a pretty good night. Obviously, we have plenty to work on.”

Most of the things that the Wolverines will need to fine tune are little things, and those likely will be addressed when Vian has its final preseason scrimmage Thursday night at Hilldale High School in Muskogee along with Grove.

“We just need to work on simple technique stuff,” Willis said. “We need to finish blocks on the offensive line.”

The varsity portion of the scrimmage will begin at approximately 7:15 p.m. The junior high portion of the scrimmage will lead things off at 5 p.m., followed by the junior varsity scrimmage.

On the other hand, while the Rangers did not score on the night, it was more important that Wise see how his team reacted to what opposing teams did among other things. For the most part, the new Roland coach got his questions answered.

“We had a few good drives,” Wise said. “We made sure all of our kids got some good reps in. We got a lot of good work, and that was what I wanted to see. We had a lot of good things that I saw. Some of the things I wanted to look for were what their conditioning was, where their minds were and see how well they picked up on what we’re trying to bring to the table offensively and defensively. We showed some stages of good things, and some things that need to improve. There are things all over the field I’m pleased with. A lot of the stuff I was pleased with was our effort and our attentiveness to seeing what we need to do. I felt on both sides of the ball, I saw good stuff.”

Since the Rangers will be idle until the season opener, their annual “Battle of 64” game with archrival Muldrow at 7 p.m. Sept. 5 at Muldrow’s Marty Rogers Field, Wise will use this week and next week to iron out the kinks.

“A lot of things need to be worked on,” Wise said. “Right now, we’re in the process of understanding what each of our jobs are. We’re making sure our kids know what their job is on every play. Offensively, we need to have better reads. We need to see the field better. Our (running) backs are going to have to see the holes better. Our offensive linemen are going to have to figure out the blocking schemes a little bit better than we did in the scrimmage Friday night. There’s things all over the field we need to correct.”