[EKUAlum05]

Scrimmages have merit...but it simply is unfair to take them for anything more than what they are. The biggest issue with scrimmages is how different coaches approach them.

One Coach may view a scrimmage as an extra game... another coach views it nothing more as a chance to allow his players to practice and hit kids that are not their teammates.

You definitely can get a feel for talent level, timing, tackling ability, and areas that need improvement from a scrimmage, but at the same time you have to view it typically as a Coach who is purposely trying to see things in a live game setting.. thus using players he may normally not use, calling plays he may normally not call, and throwing a gameplan to the win on the side of seeing who is best equipped to help his 2 Deep.

What I do not agree with is the approach that a scrimmage has no bearing and can be completely tossed out. Take the Bell County Scrimmage for example against Clay County.

Does this mean Clay County is a better team than Bell and would beat them Week 1? No

Does this mean Clay County and Bell are 6 TD's different than last year when they met in the regular season? No

But.. you can infer that a typical Bell County team performs much better than a typical Clay County team if they scrimmage. In fact, a Bell County team scrimmaging a Clay County team last season would have probably seen a different result.

This stands to reason that Clay County is better than last season at this point and/or Bell County is not as far developed at this point as last season.

Judging by roster turnover I would venture to say it is a little of both as Bell is fostering in inexperienced players, whereas Clay has starters returning that are building on a foundation. Once again..this in no way represents what would result in a regular season game say in Week 5..but it does mean that Bell probably has a steeper curve to develop on compared to year's past.