At Apalachee High School spring football practice, the usual people you expect to see are there. Wildcat coaches, players, trainers and personnel are there like they always are each spring practice.
However, there have also been several visitors to recent spring practice sessions in the form of college scouts who have their eye on numerous AHS players.
“It’s been a busy time,” Wildcat head coach Shane Davis said. “Of course, that’s good. It’s good for our kids to get this attention. I know for the past week and a half Coach (Matt) Sorrells has had to handle the weight room by himself because I’ve been busy talking with recruiters.”
In fact, there was only one practice session during the first week of AHS drills where no college scouts were present.
Wildcat players gaining attention are Rakim Peters, Johnny Thompson, Clint Ashe, Zay Henry, Jermaine Smith, Chris Morris and Josh Holton.
“What’s happened, and that has been a great thing, is that a scout will come by to see one player and then they notice another one,” Davis said. “The whole thing has been a great experience for our program.”
Looking ahead to the 2012 season, Davis and the AHS program hopes to return to the postseason after narrowly missing the playoffs the past two seasons.
The AHS football program will conclude spring drills this week. The players from Haymon-Morris Middle School and Westside Middle School will scrimmage at 6 p.m. Friday followed by the varsity players at 7:30 p.m.
As far as the second week of practice, the Wildcats won’t change a great deal.
“We are too far in to change now,” Davis said Sunday. “We have a lot of returning players and that has helped things go smoothly. We will continue to try and add more offensive plays in.”
Offensive coordinator Joel Miller has been pleased with the progress made in the first week of spring practice.
“Spring is going good so far,” Miller said Monday morning. “We have had five good days of practice and hope to keep it going this week. The tempo and the effort has been great and we seem to be getting better. The attitude of the guys has been super, there isn’t a single player with an ego out there, everyone has one goal and that’s winning. The goal of spring practice is always to try to complete the depth chart. We still have a lot of position battles still going on and those will continue this week. Competition in practice is a great thing. When a player gets too comfortable they usually stop improving. We also want to get our base plays installed during spring, so during the summer we can continue to rep those plays and fine tune to the important techniques of each play.”
Following work this spring, AHS will begin summer workouts and fall practice leading into the preseason scrimmage at Elbert County Aug. 17. The regular season begins Aug. 31 at Lanier High School.
For this week, the Wildcats players and coaches are working toward the spring game.
“The spring game is a chance for the kids to have a little fun and play in front of some people for a change,” Miller said. “But, at the same time it is also another chance for them to impress us and get some good reps on film. We hope to have a big turnout for the game, because these men have worked hard this offseason.”
