ROCKINGHAM - The Richmond Senior High School football program is in its third week of summer workouts, and while second-year head coach Bryan Till has seen many great things from his varsity squad, he’s still hoping to see all facets of the team progress more as the dog days of summer continue.
The Raiders hosted their second 7-on-7 competition of the summer Tuesday morning, welcoming in Cheraw High School (Cheraw, S.C.) and Fairmont High School (Fairmont, N.C.) for a series of offensive and defensive scrimmages. A light rain fell throughout most of the event, but it didn’t dampen the competitiveness on the field.
Last Thursday, Cape Fear High School (Fayetteville, N.C.) visited Rockingham for a 7-on-7, and a week prior, the Raiders traveled to UNC Chapel Hill for the “King of the Hill” tournament, which they went 5-1 on the day before being eliminated in the second round of the playoff bracket.
“I don’t have as much progression as I would like to have seen,” Till said following the three-team scrimmage Tuesday. “We were really focused in on the tournament concept at Chapel Hill (on June 14). But I feel like we’ve been a little bit more relaxed, and some of that has to do with the format -- it’s hard to get a rhythm after three plays.
“That’s tough on our guys, but that’s okay,” Till continued. “We want to do the tough things now so they can be easier later. But I haven’t seen a lot of rhythm out of our guys -- we’re not responding to the pressure the way that I’d like in the game situations. We made some great plays and had some great moments today.”
All three teams rotated and took turns playing one another on offense and defense using different formats. The first go-around, teams used a 40-yard field to take 10 snaps on offense and defense. For Richmond, rising sophomore starting quarterback Caleb Hood and rising junior backup quarterback Noah Altman split repetitions under center.
The second format condensed the field to 20 yards, and the units had just five plays to run. With 7-on-7s operating with just a center, a quarterback and five wideouts on offense, Till explained that the smaller field doesn’t allow for a true schematic representation without the use of a running back or longer drives.
“If we go 10 plays straight on defense, we can space out our substitutions and give a guy a better chance at getting in a rhythm,” Till explained of the formatting. “It gives guys almost a whole series. Inside the 20, we don’t have a ton of pass plays -- but that’s the idea, to work on some fades or play-action plays.”
And finally, Richmond played two “real scrimmages,” one against the Braves of Cheraw, and finished up with the Golden Tornadoes of Fairmont. Both games used 12-minute running clocks, and an official score wasn’t kept, although Till noted that he and his team kept a mental awareness.
In both scrimmages, Hood took all of the offensive snaps from Altman, but he opened the game against the Braves with an interception on his first pass attempt. Cheraw failed to pick up 20 yards for a first down in its opening drive, thanks to rising junior cornerback Zyier Baldwin, who broke up a pass on second down.
Hood redeemed himself on the second drive, as he completed a 10 yard pass on second down, before he found rising senior wide receiver Preston Coker in the right flat. Catching the pass, Coker, who was a part of the Richmond 4x100 team this past spring, darted around several Braves players before stepping on the gas and going 30 yards for the score.
Cheraw answered back on the next drive with a touchdown pass of its own, but Baldwin impressed with another nice defensive play on first down, flashing his hands to break up a pass. With the clock winding down, Richmond failed to do anything on its next offensive drive, as Hood threw three incomplete passes. In a last-second effort, Cheraw saw its chances of winning broken up by the hands of rising senior outside linebacker Taveon Ellerbe, bringing the game to a close in a tie.
Next up were the Golden Tornadoes, and it didn’t take long for both teams to get fired up, as the level of physicality quickly reached its no-pads limits.
The Raiders opened the game with the ball on offense, and Hood connected with rising senior wide receiver Bobby Terry on first down. After an incomplete pass on second down, Hood connected with rising sophomore wide receiver Jakolbe Baldwin for a first down. But Fairmont would hold the Raiders off the board and force a turnover on downs in the next four passing plays.
The Golden Tornadoes brought the long ball on their first offensive drive, chucking the ball on four straight plays 40 yards to the end zone. However, Till’s defense was primed and ready, and didn’t allow Fairmont to complete a pass, as rising junior safety Dereck Barringer and rising junior cornerback Xavion Lindsey broke up back-to-back passes, respectively, on third and fourth downs.
After Coker caught a ball from Hood on first down and eluded several would-be tacklers after falling down for a 10-yard gain, Richmond turned the ball over for the second consecutive drive after an unlucky bounce on a pass attempt to Terry landed in a Fairmont player’s hands. But as unlucky as it may have seemed, Richmond was only getting started.
On the next defensive snap for the Raiders, Ellerbe bit on a short pass attempt and jumped the receiver’s route, snagging a nifty interception which was met by cheers from his Raider teammates. Still scoreless, Hood stepped in, and on second down, he airmailed a 40-yard bomb to a sprinting Malik Stanback down the right sideline. The rising senior wide receiver, who had a breakout season a year ago, reeled in Hood’s pass over a Fairmont defender for the game-winning score.
Toward the end of the game, both teams became outwardly vocal toward one another, causing Till to rush out and settle his players down.
“We lost a little bit of our composure,” Till said, alluding to the feistiness between his team and Fairmont’s. “I wanted to talk to the guys because that’s not what we teach and who we are. I want our kids to be excited and celebrate with each other and have a lot of fun, and we’re always trying to get better.”
From an offensive standpoint, Richmond’s offensive coordinator Brad Denson echoed Till’s desire to see more progression, but also noted some of the day’s bright spots.
“I don’t think we progressed from where we were (at Chapel Hill) because we played really well in those six games,” Denson said. “Our progressions, from our quarterback reads all the way down to running the correct route, to making sure our spacing is right and catching the football, we definitely could have been better today.
“But I did see some good things,” he concluded. “We have installed a couple new routes and this kind of helped out. But at the same time, I’d like to see some more balls caught. It’s a different game without running the ball, but if we can throw the football (in 7-on7s), then we should be able to throw the ball on Friday nights.”
The Raiders will have a regular scheduled practice day Wednesday before hosting another 7-on-7 Thursday morning. Cheraw will return for a second scrimmage, and joining the Raiders and the Braves will be Marlboro County High School (Bennettsville, S.C.). Starting July 1, through July 7, the Raiders will take a mandatory break from all football activities.
