It’s not often that a small private school like Covenant gets a chance to line up against a public school two or three times its size, but on Friday the Eagles locked with two of them in a round-robin scrimmage against Charlottesville and Culpeper County.
It was clear from the start that second year quarterback Lee Coppock is comfortable with receiver Sam Patterson. Patterson started as freshman last year and with receivers Andy Colberg and Hunter Loose graduated, Patterson is poised to be the primary target for Covenant. Throughout the scrimmage, both Coppock and Patterson — each of whom stand well over six feet tall — connected on a handful of various passes, from post routes to button hooks.
First-year coach Rich Little plans to use Patterson in a spread formation when possible to try and create some mismatches for Coppock to capitalize on.
“Sam’s a very good athlete and we’re lucky to have him,” Little said. “Football has evolved a little bit over the years and we want to be able to spread our players through out the field so that they can be successful.”
Little hasn’t given the offense a complete face lift but rather chose to give it a simple tune up — changing some terminology and adding some new formations.
“The bottom line is that there are some similar things but we’re putting our own spin on it,” Little said. “Obviously we want to have some different wrinkles and work kids around to some different positions that they may not have played last year.”
Chris Shifflett looked comfortable at running back as well as linebacker. Shifflett spent last year blocking for Luke Heinsohn and now gets a chance to showcase his abilities as a ball carrier. But according to Little, Shifflett has been a lot more than just a cog in the offense.
“Chris Shifflett has been a great leader,” Little said. “Just with his work ethic both on and off the field. That’s just a young man with a lot of character that leads by his actions and all the guys really look up to him.”
