This past Thursday, Levelland football faced off against Big Spring at home in their final scrimmage before the start of the regular season, and let’s just say the matchup didn’t lack any animosity.
The scrimmage began with each team getting a series of controlled drives, where each offense ran an allotted number of plays, no matter the outcome.
Following that, the two teams squared off in a live timed half, simulating a real-game scenario, which ended up being short-lived. The entire night both teams had been extremely chippy with lots of extra-curricular going on after the plays, to the point the refs had to separate the teams on multiple occasions.
This rooted from the countless cheap shots and endless over the line trash talk from Big Spring, which reached its boiling point when one of their players absolutely leveled the Lobos starting quarterback Ethan Salazar more than a few seconds after he made a pass.
The dirty hit resulted in Levelland coming to their quarterback's defense, which in return resulted in a brawl.
Amid all the wrestling, shoving and fighting, the refs worked to separate everyone and when they finally did, the scrimmage was called off early.
Following the conclusion, multiple sources confirmed that Big Spring coaches put hands on the Lobos players during the scuffle.
That, along with some things said by their players is bushleague stuff from the Steers, and it has no place in football.
But, regardless of their opponents' actions, Levelland Head Coach Lyle Leong expects his players to play and act at a higher standard.
“Bottom line at the end of the day, no matter what happens, we just have to be more disciplined. We’re definitely going to address it and handle it to make sure it doesn’t happen again, because we can’t do that on Friday nights. I’m proud of our guys for standing up for each other and having each other's backs, we’ve just got to do it the right way,” Leong said. “I like where their hearts are, we just have to make our actions follow that. There’s only so many times someone can punch you without punching them back, it comes back to how we respond. Good teams are disciplined teams that are able to deal with that type of stuff, like late hits and other teams trash talk, and do that the right way. So right now, we’re not a good team, but we will be, and we’ll have it fixed by Friday and have them ready to go.”
Coach Leong has grace and understanding for the fact these are still young kids who play with a lot of passion and pride, but he made it clear that moving forward they need to learn to let things go and not always have to have the last say.
His players have already faced punishment for last week's actions, he didn’t say what it was, but I could infer it was treacherous conditioning.
From the look I saw on his face, he’s not too worried about players breaking the rules after the punishment this week, which again awaits any player who commits a personal foul moving forward.
Now as far as how Levelland actually played during the scrimmage, they did really great things.
The offense was practically unstoppable, moving the ball at will against Big Spring.
Junior receiver JD Monge diced their secondary with several big plays on deep balls and short screen passes he turned into big yardage gains, while sophomore running back Noah Martin also had multiple carries spring for chunks of yards.
Senior Kysen Niblett also notably had a couple of big catches, one slant across the middle which he took for several yards after the catch and then a deep ball bomb for a touchdown.
The lone time the Lobos were stopped was a short-armed interception where junior quarterback Ethan Salazar’s arm got hit by a pass-rusher during the throw, which is a little unlucky but going to happen occasionally.
Coach Leong credited fifthyear offensive coordinator Marlon Winn for his great execution of the air raid scheme and how he’s gotten his players to buy into, develop and thrive in it, which Leong anticipates will continue in the regular season.
Defensively, the Lobos were able to stand up well against the Steers, but they struggled with giving up big plays which is something they’re looking to clean up moving forward.
“We’ve got new coordinators this year, so they’re working through the kinks. They’ll definitely be coming in and changing things to get some things fixed up within themselves and their players,” Leong said. “That’s why I hired them, I trust them, and I know they’ll do a great job. That’s kind of been our identity, we score points, but we also give up a lot too. I think with the coordinator changes, that changes. They’re hungry and fresh, so I think they’ll have it figured out by Friday.”
Moving forward under new co-defensive coordinators Mike Brogden and Pete Richardson, the defense will tighten things up and line out the details as they look to change the narrative surrounding the unit.
On both sides of the ball, Levelland is ready to showcase their abilities and improvements in real-game action.
It all starts this Friday as Levelland travels to play on the road at Dalhart at 7 p.m., looking for their first win against the Wolves under Coach Leong.
“I’m excited for week one, excited for my kids to get to compete for four quarters. I feel like we have a pretty good team, and our kids understand what we expect,” Leong said. “We’ve got to just go out there and play from whistle to whistle, penalty free, being disciplined, and we can’t have turnovers. If we do those things, it will be a good night. Dalhart, we haven’t beaten them yet and you know as they say, the third time's the charm.”