The scoreboard read Grandview Heights 25, Colonel Crawford 20, at the conclusion of Thursday night’s scrimmage game between the two OHSAA Div. VI ballclubs, but for Eagles head coach Ryan Teglovic, the numbers on the scoreboard weren’t nearly as important as the information he gathered about his team.
The two and a half hour live-action training session was the final tune-up prior to the opening game of the 2015 regular season, which is set for Aug. 28 against Mount Gilead at North Robinson.
Teglovic said his top priority for Thursday’s scrimmage was to keep his team intact physically. He said the game also affords the coaching staff the opportunity to fine tune any areas of concern.
“Number one, we were hoping to stay healthy and we did that,” said Teglovic, who is entering his eighth season as the man in charge of Eagles football. “I’m pretty pleased with that. Number two, you always want to get better. The verdict’s still out on that. We’ll take a look at film. I think we did some things a little bit better. We’ll see what we did well. I think it was a good scrimmage overall.”
Teglovic said Grandview Heights provided the Eagles with a good test ahead of next week’s battle against Mount Gilead. The Bobcats finished 9-2 in 2014. Their playoff run was ended by Div. VI state semifinalist Lucasville Valley.
“This was a good football team we were playing,” he noted. “Grandview Heights was a second-round playoff team last year. They expect to compete pretty well this year. They’ve got a nice team. You want to be tested in the preseason. Given that, we were right there, played pretty well. We had a decent first half.”
The Eagles’ first team outgunned the Bobcats number one squad, 20-7, in the first half. Teglovic said the Colonel Crawford starters turned in a solid performance during their time on the field.
“I felt like they were in sync pretty well,” he said. “I felt fairly good about it. I mean, there are still some things we need to work on. Like our offensive coordinator said, on the initial series or two on offense, it felt like (Grandview Heights) came out and hit us a little bit. It felt like we had to wake up a little bit there. Defensively, there were a couple of things we didn’t do well that we need to shore up and work on, but, overall, we did some pretty good stuff.”
Colonel Crawford junior varsity and freshmen players saw the bulk of the action in the final two quarters. Teglovic said that was by design.
“It was mostly about getting them out there and getting them some experience,” he said. “We’ve got 58 kids to try to get into the game at that point. The main thing for us from about the mid point of the third quarter on was trying to get all these guys in.”
Indians on the horizon
The Eagles handed area rival Mount Gilead a 51-24 defeat in 2014 and own a three-game winning streak against the Indians. Mount Gilead’s last win in the series was a 14-6 victory in 2011.
“They’ve got a lot of kids back and they have a really explosive quarterback who gave us some fits last year,” Teglovic said, referencing Mount Gilead signal-caller Deondre Cook who was a first-team All-Mid Ohio Athletic Conference selection in 2014. “We had a hard time corralling him. He’s a nice player. He does a lot of nice things with his feet and his arm.”
Cook was 9-for-9 for 127 yards passing and two touchdowns, and rushed for 138 yards in last season’s game.
