Scots adjust to playing both sides of the ball

High school football often requires players to play on both sides of the ball, and this year, Scotland High School football will also have more players than usual playing both ways.

Teams have players play both ways for a combination of reasons, such as low participation numbers or player skillset versatility or adaptability. In Scotland’s case, the team has fewer varsity and junior varsity players this year due to an increase in the number of players academically ineligible, due to struggles with virtual learning, and because of a couple players opting out for health and safety concerns stemming from the pandemic, according to Bailey.

Bailey also said Scotland’s student numbers are down overall, which is why it will be re-classified as a 3A school starting in the 2021-2022 academic year.

“I tell people all the time, our football numbers aren’t necessarily down, but the number of quality football players we have is,” Bailey said. “We just don’t have as big a school to draw from to get those guys. Everybody wants to wear the uniform of Scotland High School and play football, but not everyone wants to do what it takes and have the commitment level that it takes to stay on the football team.”

Some of the Fighting Scots that will be playing both sides of the ball this season include, senior Zy’Mere Reddick and junior Ladarius McNeill, who will both be playing linebacker and tight end, and senior Trey Chavis, who will play wide receiver and cornerback.

“I’m excited to see these guys because I know they’re good players on one side of the ball, so I’m excited to see them play both ways,” Bailey said. “While it’s not great for depth. It does mean we’re probably going to put 11 good football players out there as long as we can keep them healthy.”

Reddick said conditioning becomes instrumentally more important when you have to play both sides of the ball because you’re on the field for practically twice as long each game. McNeill said playing both ways helps him get in shape a lot faster.

“I think I do a good job of keeping myself in shape,” Reddick said. “I’m a pretty long-winded guy so that helps.”

One of the downfalls of players playing both ways is simply having less practice time on each side of the ball. For example, Bailey said when you have a two-hour practice, instead of practicing the full two hours at one position on one side of the ball, you spend half the practice playing one position on offense and the other half practicing at the other position on defense.

So, a player loses a significant amount of practice time being able to focus on their primary position. McNeill said he’d prefer to be able to focus on his primary position, but adds that he’s always willing to do what he has to do that’s best for the team.

“When you start playing kids both ways, you have to become a little more simplistic than maybe you’d like to be,” Bailey said, “and you don’t get as many reps as you’d like to get with the kids.”

However, playing both ways can also be helpful to a player and advantageous for a team. The skillsets a player possesses playing one position can often help translate to helping them succeed at a position on the opposite side of the ball.

Chavis’ primary position is receiver, so his hands and his understanding of the routes receivers run will help him defend opposing receivers as a cornerback.

“That’s been a great advantage for Trey,” Bailey said. “I hate to say it but historically we haven’t been good at intercepting passes in the secondary. Well now that we have a wide out that’s out there playing DB, we’ll probably get more turnovers with him playing corner.”

“Being primarily a defender,” Reddick said, “it helps because I know what certain defenses are set up to do so it makes doing my job on offense that much easier.”

Reddick said the additional logistics involved with playing both ways is simpler than it might seem.

“It’s mainly just learning where to line up and the different signals for offense because on defense it’s pretty much everybody running the same coverage and what the defensive front is doing,” Reddick said. “On offense its’s more broken down because you have more people doing different things, but it’s all fun when you love the game like I do and with the great coaching staff we have it makes it a lot easier on me.”