GREENVILLE — Preseason 7-on-7 scrimmages are designed to give football coaches an early look at their teams, but for Greenville head coach Steve Channell, the greatest value comes from identifying weaknesses before the season begins.
“I think it’s finding your weaknesses because you should know your strengths,” Channell said following the Green Wave’s latest summer scrimmage. “I know what our strengths are, and our weaknesses surfaced. We haven’t even started practice yet, so we know what we have to work on. Sometimes in coaching it takes you two or three games to know what you have to work on. I know what we have to work on. So as we go into the season, that’s our task at this point.”
The Green Wave took part in another preseason 7-on-7 session without pads, continuing a series of summer scrimmages designed to sharpen quarterbacks, receivers and defensive backs ahead of official practice.
While Channell acknowledges the drills have value, he believes they provide only a limited picture of a football team’s overall ability.
“These seven-on-sevens, I’m not a fan of them,” Channell said. “You don’t have your line out here. You don’t have your full squad out here.”
Instead, the veteran coach focuses on a handful of key areas that can be evaluated in the passing-only format.
“Here’s what seven-on-sevens are for,” Channell said. “Three or four basic things. Can your quarterback make good decisions and know where the ball needs to be thrown? Can the secondary guys get to the areas where they’re supposed to get to and run their defensive coverage? If a guy’s in man coverage, does he have the physical skills to run man coverage? And the last thing is, do your receivers know what to run on a given play?”
Those evaluations have already helped Greenville’s coaching staff identify areas that need attention before preseason camp opens.
“That’s what it comes down to,” Channell said. “We know we have some work to do in some of those areas, but I’m not a big fan of seven-on-seven. There are things that you can gain from it to make you better, but when you take out the linemen, then it’s really not football. It’s two-hand touch in the backyard.”
For the third consecutive summer scrimmage, a large crowd gathered to watch the Green Wave compete, providing an encouraging sign of community support as anticipation builds for the 2026 season.
“Good turnout again,” Channell said. “We’re just looking forward to getting through the summer schedule. We have three more workouts, and then Aug. 1 is here, and we get started. We’re just looking forward to getting started for real, starting Aug. 1.”
With official practice just around the corner, Greenville will use its remaining summer workouts to address the weaknesses exposed during 7-on-7 competition before turning its full attention to preparing for the regular season.
