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After one full week of fall camp, the position battles are still ongoing for Point University’s football team. 

The Skyhawks are coming into the season with a lot of experienced players on their roster. However, no positions have been completely decided. Head Coach Trevor Zeiders has learned a lot about his team in the first week, but he still has a lot to figure out. 

“We still have a lot of work to go,” Zeiders said. “The biggest thing about this time of year is there’s a lot of things that you still have to figure [out]. No position battles are settled yet. We’re continuing to see good battles. I mean, guys are competing.”  

The team will be having an intersquad scrimmage on Saturday. Zeiders expects to know a lot more about his team after the scrimmage. 

“Majority of our install is done, which means the majority of the plays are in,” Zeiders said. “Now, it’s really trying to see who can actually execute. Who can do things you need them to do, and who can do it when money’s on the line?” 

The team had a small scrimmage early in the week, and they ran around 25 plays. Emery Bryant and Quin Teasley both impressed during the scrimmage. Overall, Zeiders has seen good competition from his team. 

“Saw some good stuff, saw some decision making stuff,” Zeiders said. “Saw some guys that started to play, but we didn’t have our full complement of guys. Some guys were still working through the whole process of being cleared to go.” 

One of the biggest position battles going into camp is at the most important position. Point has several experienced quarterbacks competing for the starting role, but so far no quarterback has set themselves apart from the competition. 

“They’re still all right there together,” Zeiders said. “We’re kind of hoping that one of them starts to separate themselves sooner [rather] than later. We’re waiting on that, but we haven’t seen it yet. That’s kind of the biggest issue or the biggest item for us is, who really wants this?”

Zeiders is looking for the starting quarterback to be more of a game manager and not to make mistakes. 

“The biggest thing, they’re going to have to make the right decisions, try to put us in the best situation and understand what we’re being given and not try to do too much,” Zeiders said. “We’re not asking anybody to lose the game for us or win the game for us…” 

Sensier Carnes has been the starting running back for Point in the past. Last season, he suffered an MCL injury that kept him out. 

“He’s actually coming along nicely,” Zeiders said. “There’s really no rush in that regard.” 

Carnes is the most experienced running back for Point, but some younger players have been competing for the starting job. Trey Inge and Jace Grant have impressed Zeiders during fall camp.

The starting kicking job is another battle that will be settled during fall camp. Steven Earnest was expected to be in the competition, but he left to go to a different school. 

Both the sam and mike linebacker positions have been an intense battle during fall camp. Two players could end up rotating as the starting mikelinebacker. 

“Right now SanJuan Warner and Ethan Binns are literally 1A and 1B,” Zeiders said. “They are literally neck and neck at the mike linebacker position. I just told them yesterday, I don’t care who’s out there when we start. They’re both going to play a lot.”

Key Larkin has the most experience at sam linebacker, but so far Cortez Thomas has been pushing him for the starting spot. 

To this point, the defense has outplayed the offense. Zeiders said that’s expected early on in fall camp. 

“Right now, defensively we’re ahead of the offense, which is normal for camp,” Zeiders said. “Both sides have made some plays. I’ve seen some really good things on both sides of the ball.”