Isabella hosts five-team 7-on-7 football camp
Published 3:51 pm Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Isabella High School hosted the third 7-on-7 football camp within Chilton County over the past couple of weeks.
The camp consisted of five teams that included Billingsley, Isabella, Jemison, Marbury and Thorsby.
“We’ve been pretty successful at building some momentum,” Isabella head coach Tate Leonard said.
Leonard is a proponent of 7-on-7 camps, and plans for Isabella to participate in three to four camps each summer moving forward.
According to Leonard, as the majority of offenses began to change to more of a spread look, the need for such camps was a natural progression.
“It’s a good chance for our quarterback and receivers to get their timing down and for the secondary to work on communication,” Leonard said.
However, run-oriented schemes such as Thorsby enter the camps with a slightly different mindset.
“We just want to come out and make sure that we’re getting better,” Thorsby head coach William Jackson said. “This is not necessarily us because we like to run the football and play good defense,
but it does allow for your receivers to get that necessary live action.”
The obvious difference in the camp setting is the absence of the offensive and defensive lines, which create added elements for the quarterback to consider when surveying the field.
“Everybody looks good in shorts, but it eventually comes down to when you put the pads on,” Leonard said.
With all the change going on around the Isabella football program, the coaching staff is relying even more on the current senior class.
“I expected it to be a lot harder of an adjustment, but it’s amazing how things have settled in,” Isabella senior C.J. LeCroy said.