Madden pleased with RMS spring scrimmage

By Staff
Mike Self FCT Sports Editor
Russellville Middle School football coach Jeff Madden said he was excited about what he saw during the team's annual spring scrimmage on Friday night.
"We had a good night. It was kind of cool for football, but it was still fun," said Madden, who guided Russellville to a 5-2 record last fall in his first season as head coach. "We had 87 kids come out [this spring], and it was a fun two weeks. I told the kids I was ready to play a couple more quarters."
Friday's scrimmage was an intrasquad game featuring two 10-minute quarters and two eight-minute quarters, and Madden said highlights were aplenty.
"Our offense did fairly well," he said. "We had several good drives, and we scored six or seven times. We had some sixth-graders who looked good. Our quarterbacks played well.
"The highlight of the night was made by one of our tailbacks, James Matias. He's quick as a cat. He took a toss sweep around the end on about fourth-and-40 and scored a touchdown. You should have seen the smile on his face when he got back to the sidelines."
Madden also praised the play of tailback Antoine Suggs and quarterback T.J. Lindsey as well as that of his offensive line.
"Our two guards will be about 6-foot-2, 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds," he said. "We've got three or four guys about that size. Our tackles will be about 6-foot-2, 175 pounds and quick and athletic. The offensive line should be one of our strong suits this year."
Madden also had positive things to say about the performance of his defense.
"There were definitely some bright spots on defense," he said. "We'd only had eight days to practice, and there's no way to work on everything you need to work on in that amount of time. Some of the schemes are hard to learn, and you have to go over all the blitz packages and assignments and things like that.
"The defense still did a good job, though. We had several guys who made good hits, and they held us from scoring a few times. [Linebacker] Jackson Witt, [defensive back] Andre Newell and [defensive back] Matthew Duncan all had good stops. Daniel Hollimon and Hayden Crane made some good hits, too."
All in all, Madden said the spring game was a tremendous success.
"I want to thank all of the coaches who helped this spring," he said. "We also had some varsity players like Jordan Phillips and Montrae McCulloch who came out and helped.