Friday night was a good night for the Union Spartans.
After watching all five county teams playing in the 2015 Pigskin Jamboree, Union may have just been the most surprising… in a good way.
The Spartans’ expectations from many are not high this season, as they return seemingly no upperclassmen, and have more freshmen on the roster than any other class. However, Union’s head coach Doug Burley thinks his team can be better than many people think, as he has said prior to the season, that this team is capable of winning six to seven games. On Friday night, for the most part, he liked what he saw.
“I thought overall, we were pretty good tonight,” said the veteran head coach of the Spartans. “We were able to see even more tonight what we are capable of doing. I was impressed with our line tonight on both ends. I know that I have told people preseason that our line was a big question mark, but I liked what they were able to do tonight.”
As far as a weakness or issue that Burley feels they need to work on, he mentioned that fatigue could be an issue with his small-roster team, and he needs to do a better job of getting them conditioned.
“If they aren’t conditioned by the start of the season and throughout the season, that’s on me, and that’s my fault,” Burley continued. “We are going to keep them running and doing all sorts of exercises to keep them in good shape, and get their game legs under them.”
Dawson Thornton and Nadir Goodwin shared time at quarterback during the jamboree, and Shyquan Brunson and Chris Nash each showed explosiveness from the backfield.
Although Union does not have an abundance of players, nor an abundance of big guys up front, they do have many talented, athletic players and playmaking positions. As Coach Burley alluded to, the offensive and defensive lines are going to be the biggest question entering the season for the Spartans.
It was a great display of improvement from last season, just from a first glimpse of the 2015 Union Spartans.
