SAVANNAH, Ga. – The Savannah State Tigers continued the spring push with their eleventh practice of the short practice season. They will wrap up the spring session this week with two more practices Wednesday and Friday, culminating with the annual Orange and Blue scrimmage Saturday in T.A. Wright Stadium at 6 p.m.

The Tigers continued Monday with individual position drills and fundamentals. The coaching staff focused on adding offensive schemes and building the competition at every position.
“We had a good day of practice today,” head coach Steve Davenport said. “We're just working practice like we've been doing all spring. We are getting our inside drills in and working on fundamentals in the individual period. We're going to continue to do that. We're going to practice every day and figure it in terms of getting better fundamentally.”

Davenport has worked each practice session with the same methodology as a scrimmage, pushing the team to compete hard every time they hit the field. Saturday's annual game will be a continuance of that philosophy.

“Saturday's scrimmage will be similar to today,” Davenport said. “We're going to treat it like a practice. We'll practice like regular and do some 11 on 11 that will give that team concept. We're going to use every day and try and get better.”

Treating every practice as a scrimmage has created the sense of competition within the players as they continue to show signs of improvement and battle for a starting role in September. The biggest and arguably most important position battle is at quarterback. Returning play-caller Antonio Bostick has been competing with freshman Hunter Vaughn at the position, but Bostick's experience has begun to shine through as the two teed-up in practice this week.  

“The biggest surprise offensively has been Antonio Bostick,” Davenport said. “He's really matured and shown us some good things. He's really been doing some good things over the last week and a half. We're impressed with what he's doing.”

“You expect a freshman to show some rust, and Vaughn has done some of that lately, as we've continued to add things,” Davenport continued. “Bostick should be a little bit ahead, because he's done the things we're doing now. The competition is far from over. I'd say those guys have stepped up head and shoulders over everyone else and are fighting for the job now.”

Although the opening game of the 2012 season against Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma is at the top of priorities, Davenport is also looking to the future of the football program and the spring session allows him and the rest of the coaching staff to look at all positions in respect to the present and future of SSU Football.

“By the time we get ready to go to Stillwater, we'll have four to five guys playing at the level we want them to be at,” Davenport said. “And we'll be able to redshirt two or three more. Having really good players playing and good players sitting behind them redshirting, is what I think will show progress in this program.”

“The goal since the beginning of spring is to have competition at every position, especially at quarterback,” Davenport continued. “You can never get to a point you can rest, and think you've got this thing wrapped up and lose your edge. We want to make sure when we come back to camp this summer we have competition at every position and those players will be pushed to be as good as they can be.”

Heading into the final week and Saturday's scrimmage, Davenport is not looking for anything in particular, only hard work and good progress in his team.

“In Saturday's competition we're looking for a continuance of competition,” Davenport said. “We've got a lot more things in now. We've added different plays and concepts this week and that's no different than last week. We're trying to work on those and we'll kind of blend it all in and keep competing.”

The spring season is only the beginning for the SSU football squad and over the summer camp, beginning the first part of May, the addition of 23 newcomers and the addition of offensive and defensive schemes lay ahead of the team.

“This job is 12 months a year and the team understands that,” Davenport said. “They have to continue to work and stay in top condition. They don't have an opportunity to get out of shape.”