The Gilmer High School football team all but concluded its spring training session yesterday, with its annual Purple and White game at Clear Creek Middle School.

The controlled scrimmage was the first under new head coach Jason Galt and was won by the White squad, 15-0.

White garnered two early points on a safety. Greg Engler later ran the ball in from three yards out and Dillan Ledford followed with the extra point kick to widen the White advantage to 9-0.

After Purple and White traded possessions on fumble recoveries, Austin Daman added to the White lead with a sprint into the end zone from three yards out. The PAT was unsuccessful, leaving White with a 15-0 halftime advantage.

The second half was dominated by both defenses, with numerous turnovers on downs from both sides. Purple failed to cross the goal line, despite a late charge into the red zone, giving White the victory.

New Bobcats head coach Jason Galt addresses his players, after the annual Purple and White Scrimmage game yesterday at Clear Creek Middle School. (Photo by: Kevin Hensley)

Following the scrimmage, Galt explained his disbursement of players, plus his pleasure and future optimism for the Bobcats football program.

“The way I’ve always done spring games, is I try to make it as easy as possible,” Galt explained. “We don’t want to have one team more dominant than the other. We want them to be as even as possible, because that’s the best way to evaluate. That’s what we’re doing this spring, is working with the players and seeing who can make plays for us. We kind of have an idea already, but after watching some film, you see some guys that weren’t making plays start to make plays and it makes you take another look at them in the summertime.”

He continued about the scrimmage itself, “I’m a very analytical person. I’m all about planning. You develop a plan, you work the plan. Today was great. We got to throw the ball a little bit. We’re not even practicing on a full field right now (due to the construction at Pettit Field), so we couldn’t even run the pass routes we want to run right now, until tonight. I was very pleased. The kids played hard and most of them played both sides of the ball most of the scrimmage.”

Galt also named players that had stepped up and displayed their talents the best during the spring workouts, while also mentioning a player that he sees as a leader of the team.

“Our Skilled Offensive Player was Griffin Cagle,” Galt stated. “Our Skilled Defensive Player was Drew Dyer. Our Best Defensive Line Player was Greg Engler, while our Best Offensive Line Player was Dustin Brenner. Our Biggest Surprise Player was Chris Pruett, while our Most Improved Player was Alex Gill. Our two Most Valuable Players were Tyler Buntin and Austin Lacy. All those guys had a really good spring, but it wasn’t just them. I called Levi Seabolt out in front of this whole team and I said, ‘You are the leader of this team.’ He’s the guy that’s going to make this team go. He’s unblockable. He has a chance to be unbelievable, but he’s got to make that decision and be that person. All the kids look up to him and he’s got to take that responsibility and run with it.”

With the spring scrimmage out of the way, Galt also mentioned a few key items the Bobcats will look to address over the summer.

“You’re always going to work on fundamentals,” Galt said. “We’ve only been out here for eight practices and we’re already running our Twin stuff and our Tank stuff. We haven’t even put in half the playbook yet. When I say ‘half the playbook,’ it’s more like intricacies to the basic plays. That’s stuff we haven’t put in. We’ve only learned how to block one front this spring, so we’ve got a way to go in that respect. But, the kids effort and attitude was there. It’s going to be pleasant to coach these guys.”

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