The good, bad and ugly side of covering high school football:
Who's that?
Covering the Liberty/State College scrimmage on Friday was made even more interesting by the fact that neither team was identifying its players.
The State College boys were wearing their practice jerseys, which bear different numbers than their game jerseys. Fortunately Dr. Larry Kenney, father of Penn State recruit Alex Kenney, was dodging the rain drops by standing in the press box, so he filled us in on who was who.
Liberty, on the other hand, went with their practice jerseys as well ... which were numberless. Fortunately, Daniel, our PaPreps.com intern, came up with a beautiful way to identify the quarterbacks from a distance: Anthony Gonzalez is a lefty. The backups? All righties. But that 75+ bomb that Gonzalez threw for a TD? We're not exactly sure who caught that. It was likely Jarrod West, but don't quote us on that.
Quarterback sacks quarterback
Probably the most interesting play out of the scrimmage came during a Liberty offensive series, as the starting State College quarterback Dom Mills was credited with a sack on his counterpart.
That shouldn't come unexpected, though. Not only is Mills the starting quarterback, but he's also a returning all-state safety. He easily broke through the Liberty line and wrapped up the quarterback without much of a fuss.
But the irony of the situation wasn't lost on us.
Think it'll rain?
Midway through the 10-play drills, Mother Nature decided to let loose with a torrential downpour. Credit to the teams' supporting staffs for doing everything they could to keep equipment dry. Each team only took one series at down/distance drills, and it was easy to assume that was at least partially due to the less-than-ideal playing conditions.
Both coaches described the scrimmage as an overwhelming success. Sure would have been nice to have seen them give it a go under better weather conditions, though.
That shaky feeling
Heading into a press box is always an interesting situation, but never more so than the box at Memorial Field.
State College's coaching staff had a videographer strategically placed on the roof of the box for filming purposes.
Every time that videographer moved, however, the entire rest of the press box shook. Those of us sitting inside smiled nervously throughout most of the scrimmage.
Carla Swank
PaPreps.com Producer
This post was edited on 8/31 3:55 PM by Carla_Swank
Who's that?
Covering the Liberty/State College scrimmage on Friday was made even more interesting by the fact that neither team was identifying its players.
The State College boys were wearing their practice jerseys, which bear different numbers than their game jerseys. Fortunately Dr. Larry Kenney, father of Penn State recruit Alex Kenney, was dodging the rain drops by standing in the press box, so he filled us in on who was who.
Liberty, on the other hand, went with their practice jerseys as well ... which were numberless. Fortunately, Daniel, our PaPreps.com intern, came up with a beautiful way to identify the quarterbacks from a distance: Anthony Gonzalez is a lefty. The backups? All righties. But that 75+ bomb that Gonzalez threw for a TD? We're not exactly sure who caught that. It was likely Jarrod West, but don't quote us on that.
Quarterback sacks quarterback
Probably the most interesting play out of the scrimmage came during a Liberty offensive series, as the starting State College quarterback Dom Mills was credited with a sack on his counterpart.
That shouldn't come unexpected, though. Not only is Mills the starting quarterback, but he's also a returning all-state safety. He easily broke through the Liberty line and wrapped up the quarterback without much of a fuss.
But the irony of the situation wasn't lost on us.
Think it'll rain?
Midway through the 10-play drills, Mother Nature decided to let loose with a torrential downpour. Credit to the teams' supporting staffs for doing everything they could to keep equipment dry. Each team only took one series at down/distance drills, and it was easy to assume that was at least partially due to the less-than-ideal playing conditions.
Both coaches described the scrimmage as an overwhelming success. Sure would have been nice to have seen them give it a go under better weather conditions, though.
That shaky feeling
Heading into a press box is always an interesting situation, but never more so than the box at Memorial Field.
State College's coaching staff had a videographer strategically placed on the roof of the box for filming purposes.
Every time that videographer moved, however, the entire rest of the press box shook. Those of us sitting inside smiled nervously throughout most of the scrimmage.
Carla Swank
PaPreps.com Producer
This post was edited on 8/31 3:55 PM by Carla_Swank