CRESTVIEW — Junior quarterback Corey Armstrong is already thinking about the big picture.
“I just want to help our team win this year and make a big run (in the playoffs),” he said.
Crestview High School's football team opened fall practice Monday morning, and Armstrong enters camp as the starting quarterback, with sophomore Rusty Moorer fighting him for the job.
“I’m working to stay up there (as No. 1 quarterback),” Armstrong said. “He’s pushing my competitive juices a lot more than you know."
Armstrong and his Bulldog teammates are in year two under head Coach Tim Hatten, and Armstrong feels much more comfortable running the offense.
“I feel a whole lot more ahead just for the fact that I know all the reads (on what the defense is doing),” Armstrong said. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not second guessing myself, because I know what I’m doing.”
Hatten was less than six months into his job last August when Crestview opened fall camp and everything was still relatively new to the Bulldogs.
“It’s entirely different than last year, in terms of working with the kids, and there’s just a whole different level of expectations and whole different level of teaching,” Hatten said. “It’s a little more in depth and a little more detailed.
“We are not anywhere close to where we need to be, but for the first day of practice we did OK (throwing and catching the ball). But with the rules the way they are – and we’ve been throwing all summer – if you don’t look halfway decent the first day, you probably aren’t very good any way. We have some depth, but as far as knowledge of what we are doing, we are in pretty good shape.”
Hatten said his biggest concern is at running back, where the Bulldogs are manning the position by committee right now due to injuries.
“My main concern is that we need some kind of continuity at the running back position and we will build from there,” he said. “We have some injuries that have kind of hurt us a little bit and we are trying to work through those right now.”
Randy Dickson is the Crestview News Bulletin’s sports editor. Email him at randyd@crestviewbulletin.com, tweet him @BigRandle, or call 682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Armstrong, Bulldogs focused on winning