Veterans football wins comfortably in scrimmage against Howard

WARNER ROBINS — The Veterans Warhawks hosted the Howard Huskies on Freedom Field for their preseason scrimmage and won comfortably.

The final score on Friday was 28-13 Warhawks, and the Huskies’ offense only scored one touchdown. The other came from a pick-six late.

Here are three observations from Friday’s scrimmage:

PHOTOS: See more shots from the game.

1. A continuing quarterback battle

Veterans football coach Josh Ingram trotted out three quarterbacks on Friday: Brooks Masters, Trey Byrd and Rowan Singleton.

The three have been in a battle for the starting job all summer, and Ingram remained noncommittal on his regular season starter on Friday.

Masters is a senior and took every snap in the first half, while Byrd and Singleton (both freshmen) traded drives in the second half.

With shared reps and it still being the preseason it’s hard to get a true read on these players, but they all had mixed results in their reps.

All of them experienced some issues with accuracy and progressing through reads.

Balls put too high, thrown behind the receiver and some just plain off-target. The freshmen in particular had a few instances of staring down the primary read, and then throwing the ball whether it was open or not. There were also a couple of times there was a miscommunication on the route, and the ball was thrown to nobody.

They had good throws, too, though. Singleton had a pass over the middle hit the receiver in the chest, and they took it 85 yards to the house for his only touchdown. It wasn’t a “gimmie” throw either, he had to fit it in a pocket where the defensive back couldn’t get it as well as lead the receiver across the middle of the field into space.

Byrd also threw a touchdown pass; He threw it high for Kaden Gutierrez who went up and brought down the 15-yard pass in the end zone. He threw it away from a lurking defender, and in a place Gutierrez could use his inside leverage to protect the ball.

Veterans may decide to go with Masters who’s been getting more snaps in the spring and now in the scrimmage, or they may decide to invest in the future and start one of Byrd or Singleton.

2. The future at receiver looks promising

There was rightfully concern about the receiver room with the departure of Preston Bird, Chandler Thomas and others. While the next generation of receivers hasn’t quite arrived, there were plenty of good signs during Friday’s scrimmage.

Senior Aaron Evans is the only player returning to record a reception according to MaxPreps, and he looked like an upperclassman receiver should. He’s fast in the slot and gave the quarterbacks a target on his quick slants.

Junior possession receiver Mouhamadou Mane was a favorite target of Masters, especially in the first quarter as the Warhawks ran a lot of 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends), meaning there were only two receivers on the field.

They didn’t connect on a lot of passes, and some of Mane’s targets were contested, but there were a lot of receivers for Veterans who struggled with drops.

Sophomore Kaden Gutierrez was another bright spot. He high-pointed a ball in the fourth quarter and brought down a 15-yard touchdown pass.

A player you likely won’t see on varsity this year is Quincy Eichelberger, who got a few very successful targets in the fourth quarter.

He had two receptions in a row where he displayed his shifty running to get yards after the catch before he caught a deep ball up the seam to put the Warhawks in the red zone.

There are many players to be excited about, and some that will certainly see success on varsity this year. However, the best is yet to come for many of these receivers.

3. The front seven had good moments throughout the whole scrimmage

The secondary had mixed results on Friday. They did make plays as the Huskies attacked deep, but they also benefited from some bad throws from the Howard quarterback, and drops by their receivers.

The front seven wasn’t perfect by any means, but they had a lot of good moments.

The Huskies tried to run it up the gut for much of the first half, and the Warhawks’ front shut them down.

They did struggle to contain a couple of Howard’s speed backs in space. The Huskies took a jet sweep 21 yards and followed that up with a 50-yard touchdown run down the left sideline.

When the Huskies took to the air, the Warhawks regularly found themselves in the backfield chasing the quarterback.

UP NEXT

The Warhawks start their regular season next Friday, Aug. 16 on the road against Jones County at 7:30 p.m.