‘The more reps, the better’: Area football teams take advantage of playing 7-on-7 during summer

QUINCY — Players do not wear pads. There are no offensive lineman. There is no tackling.

But as coaches can attest, that does not mean 7-on-7 camps are just free-for-alls.

“Get reps and coach on the fly,” Hannibal coach Jeff Gschwender said. “That’s how we do it.”

Hannibal was one of six teams — Quincy High School, Brown County, Illini West, Mendon Unity and West Hancock were the others — to participate in Monday’s 7-on-7 camp at Flinn Stadium. The camp was broken up into five 25-minute increments with one team’s defense facing three different offenses on the turf field and two teams going head-to-head on the grass field to the south of the stadium.

“When you have a community like ours with local schools involved, it’s nice to get together, run through that and shore things up,” Blue Devils coach Rick Little said. “The more reps, the better.”

Those reps are especially beneficial for quarterbacks and wide receivers.

“These help us out a lot with the timing of the quarterback and the wide receivers,” West Hancock coach Coy Dorothy said. “If they align in a certain formation, the quarterback can read it, and the receivers know how to break, when to break. If they’re getting a press man or a different type of coverage, they can get comfortable recognizing that and making adjustments on their routes, and the quarterback can make adjustments on their reads.”

Gschwender, Little and Dorothy each will have a new quarterback at the helm this fall. The Pirates will turn to Wyeth Dorsey to take the reins from Waylon Anders, who is off to Truman State. Either Hunter Schuckman or Sawyer Harshberger will take Bradyn Little’s place behind center for the Blue Devils, and senior Brayden Carter will return to his post at West Hancock after not playing as a junior.

Dorothy said Carter has hopped right back in the saddle and reacclimated seamlessly.

“He’s picked up really well,” Dorothy said. “I’ve kept a lot of the same plays and schemes on offense, and he’s come in from day one and picked it up nicely. He’s making defensive reads really well right now, and he’s got some dudes to throw to.”

As for Schuckman and Harshberger, Rick Little said one day of 7-on-7s will not make or break who gets the starting job, but they are still getting meaningful reps.

“We film it and all those things, and we start to see if guys anticipate, throw guys open, how long it takes them to process information,” Rick Little said. “It’s still pretty laid back, but they know we’re watching. We tell them all the time, ‘You don’t win a job in a day, and you don’t lose a job in a day. Just keep going out there and working hard.’”

Little said while the benefits on the defensive side may be difficult to find on the surface, there are still important things to practice and learn on that side of the ball

“The biggest things is recognizing formations, like calling the strength from a linebacker’s standpoint, playing the ball in the air,” Little said. “There are a lot of things that are valuable in that. Some defensive guys aren’t as fond of 7-on-7s because they feel like they’re at a huge disadvantage, but at the same time, I think there is a lot of value in playing the ball in the air and recognizing formations.”

Gschwender said the fast-paced nature of 7-on-7s get the players used to what they are going to encounter come late August.

“Being able to really crank up the speed, get them in that mindset before you really get started with practices, we’re going to go, so you better be ready to get coached and fix it on the go,” Gschwender said.

Given the season is still two months away, players are going to make mistakes, but coaches understand that, and Dorothy is no exception.

“The coaches and I tell the kids, ‘Hey, you’re going to make mistakes here. We don’t want you to make mistakes, but we’d rather you make mistakes now than in September or October,’” Dorothy said. “Once they do make that mistake, they can learn from it. I tell the kids, ‘As long as you’re making a mistake at 100 percent, I’m going to be a lot more OK with that than if you’re making a mistake at 50 percent and just stopping midway through the play. Just trust your instincts and do what you believe is right, and if it’s incorrect, we’ll correct you and build you up, and you learn from that.’”

Little also acknowledged the imperfect nature of this time of year, but he also challenges his players to limit them as the season approaches.

“In the summer, it’s a low-stress situation where you can afford to make mistakes,” Little said. “You can afford to give a guy an opportunity and see if it’s a round peg in a round hole. It’s good that way, but at some point — and we tell them, too — at some point, eventually mistakes are not as OK.”

As long as the effort is there, Little can live with the occasional miscue.

“We tell them, ‘If you’re going to be wrong, just do it going 100 miles an hour,’” Little said.

This is the time to work out the kinks.

“I hear from the kids, ‘Coach, I’m just not comfortable. I don’t know exactly what I’m doing,’” Gschwender said. “Now is the time to get in there, do it and get coached up. It’s June.

“It’s all about learning right now. Just get your reps, get coached, learn what you’re doing, and go from there.”