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'Hounds just a week from opener
First-year Fort Scott Community College head football coach Curtis Horton said Thursday evening that the coaching staff has made most of their decisions about the 55-man active roster that the team is allowed to have under Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference rules.
The Greyhounds held a scrimmage Wednesday after which they made some decisions. Another scrimmage tonight will determine who gets about 10 spots that are still up for grabs.
"That (scrimmage had) everybody we had before we started cutting our roster down," Horton said. "With the coaching change, there's the transition but the kids have responded real well. We didn't really have time to worry about (the coaching change). We just kept working."
Thursday's practice was held without pads since it was in between a pair of heavy work days. The Greyhounds are just one week away from their season opener, which will be played at 7 p.m. Thursday night at Frary Field when Blinn (Texas) comes to town.
The coaching staff won't be looking to this as a short week, even though they are one of three KJCCC teams kicking off the season Thursday night.
"We had everything prearranged," Horton said. "(Thursday) would have been a game day. Coming back (today) will be like a Sunday practice. Our Monday will be a Tuesday-style practice. We've gotten away from days of the week and we have a 'Tuesday-style' or 'Wednesday-style' practice."
Thursday's offensive workout combined conditioning and no-huddle practice in what Horton calls the Bandit Drill.
"As a player, I never liked conditioning," Horton said. "So I'd rather condition practicing football than just running sprints. So we started doing the Bandit Drill a few years ago. It's a conditioning drill because we sprint (between plays) and we also run our offense. It will make us more efficient in a game.
"We get our conditioning in and we're getting in plays. We were basically running our no-huddle system. Right now, we know our offense. We were just getting used to the wrist bands and the signals and so forth. And we worked both the first and second groups."
Because they play Thursday, the final decisions concerning the 55-man roster -- of which only 12 players can be graduates of out-of-state high schools -- will have to be made by Wednesday.
NOTES -- Blinn is ranked No. 4 in the National Junior College Athletic Association's pre-season poll and No. 2 in the jcgridiron.com poll, the latter of which includes California schools. Fort Scott does not appear in the NJCAA poll but is ranked No. 23 by jcgridiron.com....
Hutchinson head coach Rion Rhoades proposed adding a four-man "taxi squad" to rosters this season but the idea didn't come up for a vote. According to a Hutchinson News story written by Brad Hallier, the proposal was tabled and could be voted on by KJCCC presidents in March.
Rhoades' idea would allow the taxi squad players to be eligible for non-conference and bowl games. It would also be a sort of reserve roster that teams could use to select a replacement for an injured player. Currently, an injured player cannot be replaced after the third game of the season.
What inspired Rhoades, who coached FSCC in 2005, was the situation his 2009 Hutchinson team found itself in. When his team played in the Salt City Bowl that year, the Blue Dragons were down to 47 players and just one quarterback....
The other two Thursday openers -- all part of the season-opening series between teams from the KJCCC and Southwest Junior College Football Conference -- have No. 3 Butler visiting No. 1 Navarro in a rematch of last year's Citizens Bank Bowl that served as the national championship game and unranked Kilgore at No. 6 Hutchinson.
The Saturday, Aug. 27 games have No. 14 Trinity Valley visiting No. 23 Independence, No. 22 Cisco at Dodge City, No. 15 Coffeyville at Tyler and Garden City traveling to face Northeastern Oklahoma A&M.
Since there are only seven SWJCFC teams, Highland ends up odd team out. But the Scotties will open with a test of their own at home against No. 12 Iowa Western on Aug. 27....