Legé pleased with Bulldogs’ scrimmage output

In the approximately 60 plays Iota’s first team offense and defense played Thursday night, head coach Neal Legé saw plenty he liked.

“We’re pleased overall,” he said. “At first, we were kind of timid. You know in practice, it’s different. You hit a guy a little and he’s falling back, but we got a lot of good out of the scrimmage. We saw good things. We saw things we’ll have to go back and correct, typical things for this time.

“We also came out unscathed. Everybody’s got bumps and bruises, but that’s about it.”

For a team with only 54 players on the roster, 16 of which are freshmen, coming out injury free is a big necessity this early in the year especially.

“We don’t have a lot of depth. We can’t afford to get anybody hurt.”

The Iota Bulldogs once again participated in a three-way scrimmage with District 6-3A’s Kaplan Pirates and District 4-4A’s Eunice Bobcats. This year’s scrimmage was held at Eunice High.

As both teams are always athletic and quick, the scrimmage typically provides a good jolt before the season to Iota.

“It’s a work in progress,” said Legé. “It’s something we started at the beginning of the season, and it’s going to take time, and when you’re getting tired, it gets harder to focus.

“That’s what I told the guys, ‘Hey, this is what we got’, and we’ve got to learn to play with what we got.”

Following a brief second team/junior varsity scrimmage between the two schools, the first team offenses and defense took the field for 15-play scrimmages.

In the first scrimmage, Iota’s offense took on Eunice defense, give the players the first chance to try out those rumored new looks on that side of the ball. Rumors of an air raid may have been an exaggeration, but Iota showed a commitment to throwing the ball from snap one of the 15-snap series.

A 5 yard pass from senior quarterback Tim Lunson to senior running back Adam Ardoin was complete. In fact, out of those 15 snaps. Iota would attempt eight passes, and Lunson would complete four, spreading the ball around to not only Ardoin, but to Landon Lejeune, who caught two passes for 20 yards, and Triston Fontenot.

The pass play calls, did open things right up for Ardoin in the second series. After three straight pass calls, Ardoin rushed for 11 yards then 10 yards in consecutive plays. Ardoin would finish with three carries for 23 yards.

In it’s second scrimmage, this time against Kaplan’s defense, Iota found it difficult to fully get going, attempting only six passes. Still, the Bulldogs racked up 43 total yards (27 on the feet of Ardoin’s four rushes and 5 yards off of Lunson’s feet as well as 16 in the air). Lunson would go 3-6 in the scrimmage completing passes to Lejeune, Fontenot and Michael Miers.

“We had some things that we missed,” said Legé. “We had some young linemen that were really playing for the first time and Kaplan had a real good defensive end and Eunice had a real good front, so (we) got baptized against good quality people. That’s what we want to see.”

It was a chance to take on athletic and strong fronts, something Iota will see time and time again this season.

“Once we get through non-district ... even non-district is going to be tough because there are some good ball clubs,” said Legé. 

Iota had some struggles on defense, but all things considering, Legé was pleased with the output.

“That’s our fault, more than anything,” he said. “With the weather the past couple of days, we’ve been running early, so we never did get to defense besides chalk talk.

“A lot of it was alignment. Like I told them I was (ticked) on the misreads because that’s simple. But, we saw some bright spots, some things we liked.”

The Bulldogs allowed 120 total yards and two touchdowns against Kaplan in its first defensive scrimmage. It also committed three false start penalties. Of those 120 yards, 101 came from the ground. 

In its second defensive scrimmage, this time against Eunice, Iota would allow 141 total yards gained and two more touchdowns. On the immediate uptick, in the second scrimmage, Iota committed no false start penalties. The biggest problem in that second scrimmage was long runs by Eunice. In fact, Eunice ran for 136 yards against Iota, which included a 25 yards run in the first scoring series and a 30 yard run and 29 yard run in the second series.

With scrimmages out of the way, Iota will close out preseason work against Crowley in the  Acadia Parish Jamboree. Action kicks off at 6:30 p.m. at Church Point High School, Thursday, Aug. 28.