The Bryant Hornets wrap up spring football practice this week and head coach Paul Calley said, for the most part, they’ve gotten what they wanted out of the workouts.
“We’re still learning and improving, still making mistakes also,” he stated. “But the good outweighs the bad right now.
“I think there were a couple of guys we would’ve liked to see more of but, for various reasons, they weren’t available,” the coach explained. “Offensively, we’ve got to develop some more receivers.
“Defensively, we feel pretty good about where we are,” he related. “We know where we stand anyway. In the secondary, we need to get some work done. There’s still some question marks. (Safeties) Brendan (Young) was injured, (Steven) Murdock was running track up until last week. (Corners) Mar’kevius (Nelson) was in track. And (Drew) Tipton was in baseball. So we really haven’t had any of our projected starters in the secondary available to us.
“We’re hoping Jordan Gentry can give us some help at safety. I’ve got a possible move-in at corner. It hasn’t happened yet but it’s possible. Jaelyn Jones has shown signs of being able to help.”
Calley noted that his team is looking at a short summer.
“We only have about five weeks,” he said. “Two weeks in June and three weeks in July. With school, the snow days pushed us back and the (Arkansas Activity Association-mandated) dead weeks fell a week later. We’re not really going to have a very long summer.”
The coach plans for his team to compete in 7-on-7 against each other on Tuesday mornings. On June 12, the Hornets will compete in a 7-on-7 at Pulaski Robinson. After the dead period, they’ll play 7-on-7 at a competition in Malvern then participate in a team camp at Russellville on July 10.
Fall practice, as always, commences on Aug. 1. The Hornets will travel to Pulaski Academy for their preseason benefit scrimmage on Aug. 26. They open the season with the annual Salt Bowl at War Memorial Stadium against Benton
