Scrimmages are final test run for teams

Bob Valladao has changed the practices at Atwater High this season in an attempt to be more careful and control the contact.

The change has his players itching to get on the field against another team.

On Saturday, the Falcons will get that chance as they host Livingston in a scrimmage at Falcon Field. The varsity is scheduled to start at 11 a.m.

“They’re ready to go,” Valladao said. “It’s the first time they’ll go live so they’re anxious. We also threw against Livingston in the summer so the kids know each other. They’re excited to hit somebody from Livingston.”

There will be many scrimmages across the Sac-Joaquin Section on Saturday as teams get one last dress rehearsal before the season starts next week.

The scrimmage is important for Atwater with the Falcons changing their offense to a spread-veer option attack.

“We’re just going to run our basic stuff,” Valladao said. “We have to show that we can run that and are comfortable with that before we can add anything else. I’m anxious to add more stuff.”

Golden Valley will scrimmage Patterson at Veterans Stadium at 7 p.m. The Cougars are looking to bounce back from a rough 0-10 season.

Cougars coach Dennis Stubbs says he’s looking at a couple positions to see who is ready to step into a starting role.

“We want to see how physical we can play,” Stubbs said. “We have a couple positions we’re looking at. We want to see who knows their responsibilities and who plays aggressive.”

Stubbs said when they originally scheduled Patterson for the scrimmage they thought the Tigers would be running a spread offense that would help Golden Valley get ready for next week’s game against Clovis East. When Rob Cozart returned as Patterson’s coach, however, he installed a triple-option offense similar to the one run by Georgia Tech.

“The one thing about scrimmages is you don’t spend a lot of time preparing for your opponent,” Stubbs said. “We’re not going to know the exact plays they’re going to run. We want to see our guys make the right reads and do what they’ve been taught to do.”

Merced is heading to Clovis High to scrimmage Clovis East at 11 a.m.. Buhach Colony is headed to Central Catholic to scrimmage against the two-time defending state champions and Calaveras at 10 a.m. El Capitan is scrimmaging at Le Grand against the Bulldogs and Dos Palos at 11:30 a.m.

Pacheco, which loses 31 seniors from last year’s team, travels to Orestimba to scrimmage against the Warriors, Hughson and East Union.

“The main thing I’m looking for on Saturday is a little more polish and maybe seeing some of our backups step up and gain some confidence,” Pacheco coach David Snapp said. “We know what we’re getting out of our first unit, but it’d be nice to see some guys take advantage of the opportunity and fight for a few extra reps.”

Los Banos and Hilmar will participate in a three-team scrimmage with Turlock in Hilmar on Saturday night.

Turlock ranks among the Central California Conference favorites and presents some massive bodies on its defensive line. Hilmar is a perennial small-school section title contender and head coach Frank Marques believes this will be an up year for the Yellowjackets.

“It should definitely get us ready for our opener with Madera,” Tigers coach Dustin Caropreso said. “Turlock is just big across the board, so that should be a good test for us, and Frank always does a good job with Hilmar. I’m not sure what the format is going to be yet.

“I’m hoping the redundancy of hitting the same color uniform changes for the guys and it gets them pumped up and they see this is where their hard work pans out.”

One of the main goals for every team scrimmaging this week is to come away healthy. Many of the coaches will keep their offenses and defenses very basic because the video will be traded with their Week 0 opponents. No one wants to tip their hand too much heading into the season openers.

“Nobody should come out and watch us,” Snapp said. “It’s going to be like watching vanilla ice cream melt.”

This story was originally published August 20, 2015 at 11:23 PM with the headline "Scrimmages are final test run for teams."