Lincoln football coach Jermaine Gales got a first look at his team live in action Saturday in the spring game at Dwight T. Reed Stadium.
The Grey team (offense) walked away with a 28-21 victory against the Blue team (defense) after a 9-yard touchdown on the final play.
Progress is a word Gales mentioned a lot when asked about how he felt walking away from seeing his Blue Tigers compete for the first time.
“We are heading in the right direction,” he said. “I am very pleased with the outputs on both offense and defense. I think that we are resilient. Our offensive line has the mentality we are looking for. We just need to get in a little bit better shape.”
Lincoln showcased an up-tempo offense that spread the ball out, an attack Gales is planning on implementing going forward.
“That is something that we are going to rely on, we are going to be up-tempo and we are going to be no huddle,” he said. “That is going to be the cornerstone of our offense, and we have to get ready to go and get our cardiovascular to where we can run 80-90 plays a game.”
It is undecided on who will be the quarterback manning the offense come Sept. 1 when the Blue Tigers open the season on the road against Washburn. Xzavier Vaughn, an Arkansas-Pine Bluff transfer, split time with Zamar Brake for a majority of the time Saturday at quarterback and both showed signs of what they could bring to this Blue Tiger offense.
“I thought they all showed some promise,” Gales said. “I think that we just need to continue to oil ourselves up. Continue to study and continue to try to drive this offense the way it needs to go. Right now, I am pretty pleased with what is going on.”
On the defensive side, the Blue Tigers showed a lot of press looks in man-to-man coverage. This is something Gales wanted to see if his team was capable of doing.
“I think on the defensive side of the ball, we needed to see if we could do it,” he said. “We had been installing some of those concepts over the past couple of weeks and we just wanted to see if we could play man-to-man coverage. That was something that we enjoy and we think could fit our young men. We just had to see if we could do it when the lights come on.”
The Blue Tigers hosted many recruits for the spring game on Saturday, something that is very important for the Blue Tigers as they are looking to increase their roster size after having around available 60 players last season.
“I want to carry about 130, that is the goal for me,” Gales said. “Division II recruiting doesn’t stop until camp lets in. We are going to keep adding to this thing, adding to the mix. We are going to keep recruiting until we run out of money, and when we run out of money, we are going to recruit some more.
“The important thing is they are here and they want to be the catalyst for the change and that is something we always talked about throughout the whole recruiting process,” Gales said on the recruits that were on campus Saturday. “We need guys who want to be the reason why Lincoln changes. We want the catalyst for the change. Everybody that was here tonight exhibited that they wanted to be part of this thing from the word go. They were here, we enjoyed having them, and we gave them a little taste of what they could see in the fall.”
The spring game concluded football activities for the Blue Tigers until camp opens. There is excitement building for Gales and his team about the possibilities of what could come this fall.
“I am thinking, I can’t wait to get started in the fall, and more importantly, I can’t wait to hit the road this May,” Gales said. “We still have a few holes to fill on the recruiting side of things. Once we get those holes filled, we are going to be cooking with fish grease.
“It feels like it was yesterday when I was standing at the podium. It is unbelievable that we got 15 practices in and that we actually did what we said we were going to do. We said initially that we were going to make progress. We are not close to the end by any stretch of the imagination, but we are making progress. I like the direction this team is headed.”