By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Beebe football team moved the ball well against Harding Academy and Central Arkansas Christian on Tuesday during a three-team benefit scrimmage in Searcy. Badger coach John Shannon liked that his offense was able to successfully move the ball, but he didn’t like that it turned it over three times.
“We moved it up and down the field, but we had two fumbles and an interception that killed good drives,” said Shannon.
The format pitted Beebe’s starting offense against Harding Academy’s starting defense for 15 consecutive plays, and later against CAC’s defense for 15 plays. In between, the second units would take the field and the starting offenses and defenses would swap.
All starting offensive and defensive units played one 15-play series against the other two teams.
The Badger defense was also impressive, save for one play.
“On defense I thought we flew to the ball really well,” Shannon said. “We gave up one big pass when we had a misdirection and they hit us on a seam route. Other than that, we stopped both teams on downs a few times and caused a few turnovers. So I was very pleased with the defense.”
Shannon only used his typical dead-T offense for 20 of the 30 plays. The Badgers lined up in the spread formation the rest of the time, still running the ball out of that formation as much as passing it.
“We had all the plays scripted and we just stuck with the script no matter where we were on the field,” Shannon said. “The first time the first offense was out there, we ran the spread five times, throwing it twice and running it three times. The second time we threw it three times and ran it twice.”
Of the five pass attempts, all five were caught, four by Badgers. Connor Patrom, Marcus Burns and B.J. Farmer all made receptions. The Badgers also had a 25-yard touchdown pass called back for holding.
On the Badgers’ first 15-play possession, they drove it to the Harding Academy 30-yard line before fumbling. After the fumble, they turned around at the 30 and was at the 50-yard line in two plays before an interception thwarted that drive.
“We picked up good yardage on every play, but we turned it over twice in the first seven plays,” Shannon said. “I wasn’t too happy about that. We got things going a little better for quite a while, but then we had another turnover against CAC, so we’ve got to cut that out things aren’t going to be pretty.”
With eight plays remaining after the second turnover, Beebe started over at the 30-yard line and used all eight plays before capping off the 70-yard drive with a touchdown. Fullback Tripp Smith punched it in on the last play.
On the starters’ second series against CAC, Beebe drove deep into Mustang territory before committing another turnover. After turning around, the Badgers put together another long scoring drive.
“Overall I thought we looked better than we did last year at this time,” Shannon said. “The offense moved the ball consistently. We threw and caught the ball well. The O-line did a good job of pass protecting and run blocking. We just have to cut out the turnovers and penalties.”