Thomson hosts Evans for scrimmage 2 weeks before season

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – High school football season kicks off in two weeks, and Friday night, the Thomson Bulldogs and the Evans Knights hit the grass at the brickyard for a preseason scrimmage.

With the final days of preseason meaning more and more with each passing day, players and coaches still have the chance to look in the mirror and find out what they can do to get the most out of themselves and their teams.

The goal is to be the last ones standing at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in December, holding a state championship trophy.

You can learn a lot in practice, but there’s nothing like stepping into the gridiron and testing your skills against another team.

Before the game, we caught up with Evans Head Coach Barrett Davis to get his thoughts on how valuable scrimmages against good teams like Thomson can be for his team.

“We’ve got a lot of road games this year. So, it’s good for us to be on the road and get battle-tested before the season begins. It’s good to go up against a premier program like Thomson. They lost some but also returned a good nucleus of their team. I think it’s a good matchup for us, you know? Obviously, everybody wants to win on both sides, but we need to see what we’re good at and what we need to build on, and I think they’re going to give us those answers,” he said.

The Evans Knights open up the 2023 season on the road against the North Augusta Yellow Jackets. Thomson starts their title defense on the road against Burke County — the only team who found a way to beat the Bulldogs last season.

We sat down with Thomson Head Coach Michael Youngblood to talk about everything from the Bulldogs winning their first state title in 20 years, the excitement around this year’s team, legendary Punter Ray Guy’s impact on Thomson, and the game of football overall.

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“You can practice all day long, but you really can see it until you go against someone else. Evans is a good matchup for us to see where we’re at from a conditioning level, where we’re at from a physicality standpoint, where we’re at in the passing game and in the run game, and things that we’ve got to do defensively so that we feel like we can be successful on this season,” he said.

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