Wildcat Blue and Grey Game Highlights Unexpected Players

The usual suspects did their thing.

Senior Darius Page battered the Wildcat defense and showed he has more shake and bake than a box of Betty Crocker. On one right sweep, senior Nyere Thompson had Page in his sights, one-on-one, and Page stuck his foot in the ground and Thompson left his cleats in the ground as Page zipped past him.

"He's quick; everybody knows that," said Thompson.

Thompson got in some good work at linebacker as well as receiver. Thompson will be asked to play quite a bit this year at linebacker, now that Roman Thompson and his family moved out of state.

"It's different. I haven't played linebacker for a while. I have to get used to it again," said Thompson.

Surprisingly, the best running performance of the night had to go to sophomore Jeffrey Keil. Keil ran hard on every touch and even scored two long touchdowns on very nice runs.

"This was a real confidence boost for me," said Keil. "I was happy to be able to show the coaches what I can do."

Keil recounted his first touchdown score.

"It was a stretch right play. I saw I had a huge cutback alley, I cut and just took it up field."

Another surprising performance came from junior and reserve quarterback Keith Hopkins. Hopkins is not the drop-back passer that Litton is but he is shifty and very dangerous when he tucks the ball and runs.

"Mike Vick is my favorite player. I try to model myself after him," said Hopkins.

Hopkins had to scramble quite a bit in the face of defensive penetration but escaped on two big plays, one where he scored a 70-yard touchdown and another where he made a spin move that looked like it came out of a video game.

"My vision and footwork have gotten a lot better over the summer," said Hopkins.

Hopkins participated in the National Underclassmen Combine this past July where he honed his skills.

Some of the more veteran players had a hard time.

"We were out of sync, our timing was off tonight," said starting quarterback Chase Litton.

Junior Chris Myers was able to get decent defensive pressure but even he admitted it was not his best performance.

"We have some things to work on," said Myers. "When (center Gabe) Nold and the guard were giving me double teams - it was ridiculous."

The defense out-played the offense, at least in the passing game. The Wildcat offense moved the ball on the ground but struggled with the passing game.

"I give our overall defensive effort a 'B' but we need to hit that 'A' mark," said defensive coordinator Mark Kantor. "Our young defensive guys really got after it tonight."

The Wildcats head into their last week of practice before they take on in their pre-season opener.