After a couple of weeks of working on itself, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team began preparing for season-opening opponent Nebraska during Friday's practice at Scrappy Moore Field.
The Mocs' scout teams made their first appearances of the preseason, and the first day running an opponents' schemes isn't always pretty, coach Russ Huesman said.
"We were trying to show them some actual plays that we're going to see and think we're going to see so they can kind of get used to it," Huesman said. "Tomorrow we'll do more of it, and hopefully it will get better. You've got to think by Sunday we're executing plays halfway decent so we get a good look."
UTC mixed in backups who will play with freshmen and other reserves on the scout teams. That sometimes resulted in players running a few plays with the scout-team offense before jogging over to the first-team offense to get in some repetitions against the scout-team defense.
"Today was just kind of getting those guys to see this is how we practice, the tempo, and tomorrow we'll introduce some base runs and base passes and the strategy of how we're going to attack the Cornhuskers," said offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield, who smiled during the final part of his comment.
Nebraska ranked No. 11 in the nation in total defense in 2010, allowing 306.8 yards per game.
Huesman's son, Jacob, is the quarterback of the scout team, which means that for the next few practices he will be doing his best impression of Huskers QB Taylor Martinez. A dual-threat player, Martinez threw for 1,631 yards and ran for 965 as a redshirt freshman last season.
Jacob had more than 2,800 yards of total offense for Baylor last season.
"In high school my coaches used to always say that's [Martinez] who I was like, so I guess it's not really that different," said Jacob, Tennessee's Division II-AA Mr. Football back of the year last fall. "But it's going to be weird running the scout team; I haven't done that in a few years."
Extra points
UTC spent the last hour of practice working on getting special teams players on and off the field in unique situations, such as when the defense scores a touchdown. ... The Mocs will practice today and Sunday and then have Monday off, as they will throughout the season.