Houston County football finished their preseason schedule with an energetic scrimmage against a familiar opponent. What did they learn?

WARNER ROBINS — Houston County played Colquitt County for the third time this summer during Friday’s energetic scrimmage at Freedom Field.

The Bears faced the Packers as a part of two OTAs (Organized Team Activities) in Cairo and Moultrie this summer, places they’ve frequented under head coach Jeremy Edwards.

Edwards, a Gwinnett County native, worked under now Veterans head coach Steven DeVoursney at Cairo High School before joining the Warner Robins staff.

He and Sean Calhoun, Colquitt County’s head coach and a Gwinnett native himself, go way back.

“He and I have known each other for a long time. We’re both from Gwinnett County … we know that can control those situations when we get together.” Edwards said. “It was a pretty good scrimmage, it was a lot of people here, so a lot of people got to see some good football.”

The environment carried a lot more energy than that of a regular preseason scrimmage. The quality of the opponent, the number of fans in the stands and the new sound system installed under the scoreboard made it feel like a Friday night that counted.

During the lulls, the sound crew had a 2000s and 2010s hits playlist loaded up with songs like, “Party in the U.S.A” by Miley Cyrus, “Yeah!” by Usher and “Baby” by Justin Bieber.

The players came in energized, too, delivering some bone-shaking hits and generating enough exciting plays to get several loud roars.

“We talked about treating this like a game. I feel like if you do it that way, then you can clean up some things when it counts,” Edwards said. “The other thing I think that created energy was that new sound system they put in here that was extremely loud, it’s phenomenal. [Our kids] were ready to play somebody else … It’s an opportunity to hit somebody else and see where we’re at.”

There was plenty of good to go around. J.T. Thomas created separation on the outside consistently, looking like he might carry on HoCo’s mantle as Wide Receiver U.

Austin Stinson also looked phenomenal as the primary running back, shaking defenders with ease and breaking off several big runs.

But, as with any preseason action, there was plenty to work on too. Quarterback Ryan Maxwell didn’t have his sharpest game and the offensive line sometimes struggled to get blocks up to the second level to create lanes for Stinson. The defense also got cooked several times in the secondary, resulting in more than a couple of big plays for the Packers.

“Offensively we got to execute when we get on the plus side and we’re in the red zone,” Edwards said. “We had some opportunities, took a sack on a play where we would have probably had a touchdown on a double move. Just little things we got to clean up from inexperienced players. They’ll get better.”

“Defensively we’re really good on the early downs, and the money down, the third down and longs right now are our Achilles heel,” Edwards said. “So we got to do a better job on third and long getting off the field.”

UP NEXT

HoCo opens up their regular season in two weeks on Aug. 21 at Center Parc Stadium against 7A West Forsyth in the Corky Kell Classic. They kickoff at 8 p.m.

The Packers start the regular season at Thomas County Central on Aug. 21 at 7:30 p.m.