APSU Sports Information
Clarksville, TN – Despite some early stumbles, Austin Peay State University football team’s offense broke through in the second half of the Governors first preseason scrimmage, Saturday, an encouraging sign for the coaching staff with the regular season two weeks away.
Senior Trey Taylor took the first snaps of the 91-play scrimmage, guiding the No. 1 offense through much of the day.
In the first, Taylor used redshirt freshman Kendall Morris to great effect. Morris opened the drive with three straight touches on runs of nine and five yards and a screen pass that went for 11.
He added another screen for 10 yards to get the Governors inside the five-yard line, but a mishandled snap pushed Austin Peay back to the 20 and the Govs were forced to settle for a 29-yard field goal by freshman Logan Birchfield.
With the second unit on the field for the next series, sophomore Mickey Macius directed the Governors lone touchdown drive of the day. After a Michael Hoover first-down catch and three Taye Davis runs brought the Governors inside the 30, Macius’ deep ball to freshman Juwan Davis resulted in a defensive pass interference that set the Governors up inside the 10-yard line.
After a rush for loss on first down, Macius hit Trey Salisbury on back-to-back plays, the second a five-yard out for the touchdown.
The Governor tight ends emerged as significant threats in the passing game on Saturday—combined, four Austin Peay tight ends caught nine passes for 61 yards, including Salisbury’s touchdown.
Taylor directed the final scoring drive, hooking up twice with sophomore Wesley Thomas and once with sophomore James Coleman to bring Austin Peay inside the 10 yet again. But a short Julian Franklin run and two incomplete passes—including a drop, which plagued the Governors early on in scrimmage—led to Birchfield’s second field goal try, a 26-yarder that he banged home.
Defensively, the Governors front seven got a significant amount of push on the day, taking away a lot of deeper looks and forcing the offense to settle for more intermediate routes. Freshman Steven Pappadakes had two sacks, with Tyler Schnieder and Hunter Lane adding a quarterback take-down apiece.
Junior cornerback Roderick Owens led the secondary with two pass break-ups, and redshirt freshman Gunnar Scholato led all Govs with seven total tackles.
While not forcing a turnover in this one, the defense nonetheless proved resilient, stopping the Governors inside the red zone to force multiple field goal attempts and forcing five three-and-outs.
The Governors will scrimmage one final time at 9:00am, Saturday, August 29th, with the season-opener against Mercer looming September 5th.
