With a renewed emphasis on winning third-down battles this season, the Nick Davis-coached Spalding High football team had a spirited situational scrimmage Friday morning at SHS.

“I was pleased,” said the Jags second-year head coach, whose team also did some situational work during Thursday’s practice. “We really got after it.”

The end result was the defense wound up with a slight edge.

“I’d say it was 60/40,” said Davis, who serves as the team’s defensive coordinator this season.

Looking to turn their fortunes around from a 2-8 season last year, the Jags are putting in the work this offseason as they prepare for Friday’s preseason scrimmage at Memorial Stadium against Pike County.

“Defensively, looking back to last year, the stat that hurt us the most was we couldn’t get off the field on third downs,” said Davis. “ So that’s what we’re focusing on — third down situations — so we can get the offense back the ball and hopefully we can control the ball. That’s our biggest focus. We’re going to do a lot of situationals, put our kids in situations, especially third downs, to get them in the mindset that when they hear that down and distance, they say, ‘Let’s get off the field. Let’s make it happen.”

“And I was pleased, I saw that during Friday’s scrimmage,” said Davis. “The kids were saying , ‘Let’s make it happen and get off the field,” and then getting after it.”

The emphasis is much the same on offense.

“The biggest thing is — we talked about on defense we couldn’t get off the field on third downs — last year (on offense) we couldn’t stay on the field,” added Davis. “So that’s our focus: How can we put ourselves into position to get first down, first down, first down and when we get in the red zone how can we finish and put points up on the board because we struggled up there also when we got in the red zone last year. We couldn’t capitalize.”

Davis was unhappy with the number of fumbles by the offense Friday. He wants those corrected before Friday’s scrimmage.

Friday’s scrimmage, however, is not the end-all, be-all for Spalding High which opens the season Aug. 31 at home against Lamar County.

“We’re still in camp mode (next week) and we’re really not going to focus on the scrimmage,” said Davis. “We’re going to focus on the fundamentals and getting better. When we get into the game the emphasis won’t be on the points and the scoreboard so much as it will be on the kids doing what they’re coached to do.”