COACH HATCHER INTERVIEW

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—The Samford football team held its final practice preparing for Saturday's scrimmage, working out for about two hours in shells Friday morning at Seibert Stadium.
 
Saturday morning's events will begin at 8:30 a.m. with about 30 minutes of practice, with the scrimmage portion beginning at 9 a.m. at Seibert Stadium. The scrimmage will be the second of fall camp. Samford head coach Chris Hatcher talked about some of the areas he would like to see improvement in from last Saturday's scrimmage.
 
"I want us to cut out the mental mistakes we made in the first scrimmage, we had a lot of non-hustling issues," Hatcher said. "I want to see us be crisper in those areas, I want to see the guys get some good work, some good live tackling, and then we'll call it a camp."
 
In last Saturday's scrimmage, the Bulldogs ran about 75 plays. Hatcher said this week's scrimmage is scripted for the same number of plays, but it could be adjusted as needed.
 
"It depends on how we feel in the morning," Hatcher said. "We're getting towards the latter part (of camp). We have it scripted to run about the same amount of plays as last week, but we'll see how we're doing in the morning."
 
Friday's practice wrapped up a week of five-straight morning practices with no classes in session this week. Samford begins classes for the fall semester on Monday.
 
"I thought we did okay," Hatcher said of Friday's practice. "It was probably the least energetic practice we've had thus far. You can kind of feel it with the guys. We had already planned on cutting it back a little bit so we'd be a little fresher for tomorrow. We've had four really good days, today was an okay day, and hopefully tomorrow we'll finish off on a high note."
 
On special teams this season, Samford returns place-kickers Warren Handrahan and Reece Everett. The Bulldogs must replace punter Greg Peranich and Michael O'Neal, who handled kickoffs last season. Hatcher said there has been good competition for the special teams spots so far.
 
"I think we've done some good things there," Hatcher said of the special teams. "We're trying to decide who our specialists are going to be. We have some good battles working there, trying to find the right combinations. Those are the hardest positions to simulate a true game atmosphere, so we're really doing a lot of technique work, and hopefully that will start narrowing itself down as we move into next week."
 
Samford opens the 2015 season on Thursday, Sept. 3, when the Bulldogs play host to Central Arkansas. The game is scheduled for a 6 p.m. start from Seibert Stadium.
 
Season tickets are currently on sale. Fans can purchase season tickets through the athletics website at www.samfordsports.com/tickets, by calling 205-726-DOGS (3647) or by visiting the ticket office on the third floor of the Pete Hanna Center.