Green-Silver tilt marks spring's end for Hounds

PORTALES — With the annual Green and Silver spring football game quickly approaching, the Eastern New Mexico Greyhounds are just trying to fine-tune some things on both sides of the ball. However, despite some intense practices and a scrimmage last Saturday, ENMU's true progress this spring won't be realized until the Hounds take the field at 6 p.m. Friday.

"It's a game-like situation," second-year head coach Kelley Lee said of the Green and Silver game. "We scrimmage and we put them in situations, but the spring game is a true game. So, there's momentum — you want to see how people respond to adversity and overcome penalties, make big fourth-and-1 stops — or pickups. Just see who rises to the challenges in those game-like situations."

According to Lee, Eastern's spring game format has varied over the years, as well as how the teams are picked. This year, the game will be simplified to a true game format, with regular scoring, penalties, etc. The one difference will be the quarter length, which will be a high school-style 12 minutes, as opposed to 15.

As for picking teams, sometimes in the past, ENMU will go with its No. 1 offense against its No. 1 defense, with the No. 2 offense supplementing the first-team defense, and the second-team defense supporting the starting offense.

Sometimes, however, the Greyhounds will draft teams. According to Lee, he and his staff will evaluate the injury report and see who's healthy and available, and then likely allow some of his veteran players to draft guys onto their respective teams.

Thus far, the final week of practice has been promising as both the offense and defense are coming into place.

"I've seen huge improvements, defensively, this week," Lee explained. "We had a good scrimmage on Saturday - offense definitely got the better hand. (But) the defense has come out the last two practices and has made some real big improvements. That's definitely good to see, (because) you don't want to see one side getting the better of the other side, all throughout the whole spring. As a head coach, you like to see some back and forth."

Paul Terry, who's expected to be Kamal Cass' successor at fullback, has already shown plenty of reasons for Greyhounds fans to get excited about this fall. Terry has already rushed for over 100 yards in both scrimmages this spring, as the 5-foot-9, 172-pounder has displayed plenty of speed and versatility.

"The line's been blocking for me good — I gotta start off with that," Terry said. "Spring's been going well for me, just trying to adapt to the full position of fullback, trying to be that leader and step up.

"One hundred yards in both scrimmages, my goal is to get 200 — but I'll take 100. It's pretty special for me, just trying to show them they can lean on me for the season coming up."

Terry has been as impressed with the offensive line as anyone thus far, as the group lost three starters from a year ago, but yet, they keep finding a way to plug along. Line play is always key in an offense like Eastern's, and with a back like Terry, one block and he could find himself going 80 yards to paydirt.

And while the offense has been exceptionally impressive this spring, the aforementioned growth of the defense has been just as big of a story. The Hounds are switching to a 4-2-5 defense this year, and one position feeling the pressure to perform is linebacker.

Brad Hardin, who was amongst the Hounds' best defenders last year, returns for one final season, while Josh Miller (6-1, 220), a senior from Stevenson, Washington, will join him to take on a full-time role in 2018.

In 2017, Miller appeared in all 10 games, but started just one. Yet, Miller still recorded 29 tackles (tied for seventh on the team), along with 5.0 tackles for loss (sixth) and one interception (tied for second).

"It's been a change, for sure. Last year, we had three linebackers on the field, and this year, we only have two," Miller explained. "As a linebacker's perspective, there's more being asked from us. From a leadership perspective, we have to step up more and play more (sideline-to-sideline), as opposed to just one back, one gap like last year. It's a lot more on the linebackers this year stopping the run, compared to last year."

Like Lee, Miller definitely sees the strides on defense this spring, as well as players starting to really understand and buy-in to defensive coordinator Mike Walton's scheme. And though it's no secret the offense has had the advantage this spring, that doesn't deter Miller from feeling pretty confident about Friday night.

"As a defense, hopefully we don't allow our offense to do anything. We always have super high expectations, and hopefully we just run 'em," Miller said. "Realistically, we try to go for under-100 yards rushing, and try to hold them for no touchdowns rushing."

Terry, on the other hand, isn't too afraid to hold back, either. "Obviously, I'm going to say that my team is gonna win," Terry said, laughing. "I don't know our teams yet, but I'm gonna try to set us up for success. I'm a competitive person, so I'm gonna try to do my best to get that dub (win). I don't want to take no Ls."