Vereen Sees Bright Spots, Sloppy Play in His First Scrimmage as Coach

RISON - Rison Coach Chris Vereen saw some "bright spots" and plenty of room for improvement after the Wildcats concluded spring camp with a scrimmage last Thursday evening at George Walker Field of Champions.This was the second consecutive season for the Wildcats to learn a new offense. Rison ran the spread last year under firstyear coach Caleb Carmikle, who left the program to become head coach at his alma mater, Class 4A Heber Springs. Vereen, meanwhile, is installing the flexbone in his first season at Rison serving the previous six season as head coach at Class 4A Star City.Considering he had only 10 practices to install the new offense, Vereen said he felt they made some progress but still have some learning to do. While there were some "bright spots" during the scrimmage on both offense and defense, he said the game was "pretty sloppy" at times with fumbles and errors executing plays.The scrimmage consisted of the first-team offense and the first-team defense going against the "best of the rest" for 20 plays each. While the first-team offense was on the field, the quarterback took the snap from under center for most of the plays, though there was some shotgun formations mixed in.One thing that did come out of the scrimmage, Vereen said, was that he will go into summer knowing he has three legitimate options at quarterback in sophomores Kyson Walker and Ethan Saeler, and senior Austin Ellis.Walker started at quarterback last Thursday followed by Ellis and Saeler. All three had their moments with Vereen pointing out that Walker had an opportunity for a long touchdown run had one play been properly executed. Walker also had a long touchdown pass to Saeler.Meanwhile, Ellis showed some surprising speed after escaping pressure to scramble for a first down on a third-and-long play, and Saeler had a good overall command of the offense both on the ground and in the air.While each of the quarterbacks have their own par...