St. Peter, Minn. – After eight days of seeing nothing but black and gold winged helmets line up across from each other on Hollingsworth Field, members of the Gustavus Adolphus football team finally saw someone other than a teammate across them when they welcomed Martin Luther College to St. Peter for a scrimmage on Saturday morning.
“It’s great to finally get out there and see what we can do against a different opponent,” said senior tight end Jordan Rudenick (Nicollet, Minn.). “We’ve been smacking each other around for a good week, so it’s nice to get to play against somebody else.”
Saturday morning’s scrimmage began with a series of inside run plays before moving into one-on-one drills for the receivers and defensive backs. Following one-on-one match-ups on the outside, the group moved into seven-on-seven pass skeleton while the offensive and defensive line took their turn with one-on-one drills. Special teams took its turn next with three field goal attempts and three kickoffs for each team before finishing with a series of situations for each offense in a live contact setting.
“For the first week, we haven’t done a lot of full contact,” remarked head coach Peter Haugen. “We go full contact up front, but we don’t tackle, so today was really the first opportunity to see how we are tackling on defense. We also get to see our ability to hold on to the ball and break some tackles offensively, so those are things that we like to see as a staff, but for the players, it’s just fun for them to play against somebody else.”
Following the scrimmage, the coaches, players, and their families got the opportunity to join in food and fellowship at a team barbecue held in Lund Arena. Gustavus will open its regular season on Saturday, September 14th when it plays host to Simpson College at Hollingsworth Field.