Doane duals Peru State in preseason scrimmage

CRETE, NE — Football is back at Al Papik Field in Crete.

Doane held a preseason scrimmage with Peru State Sunday night. Heading into his fifth season at Doane, Tiger head coach Chris Bessler gives his thoughts on the night.

"Offensively we did a good job of running the ball most of the game," Bessler said. "That looked good, I thought, for most of the scrimmage. We tackled fairly well. We forced the opponent to do what they didn't really want to do, which that's what defense is."

The night consisted of seven-on-seven drills and o-line versus d-line drills to start. Then the teams competed, each running 60 plays in an 11-on-11 format.

It gave Bessler a look at his quarterbacks as Doane will have a new man under center this fall.

"This is fabulous to get these guys out there and to play against a different team, different scheme and different pressures and make them react on the go," Bessler said.

It’s the first scrimmage the two teams have had since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We're a week into camp and the guys are tired of pounding on each other," Bessler said. "Just adds a bit of excitement. It's a very useful tool moving forward." 

Now the Tigers set their sights on their Week 1 opponent Concordia.

"We're basically halfway through our practices now before Concordia comes to town," Bessler said. "We'll take a look at film and there's going to be a lot of things that we see and we'll go back and make corrections and build on what we did well."

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 3. All Doane games will be broadcast on Ol’ Red 99.5. All Tiger home games are being televised on NCN.