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The Red Raiders’ first scrimmage of the 2025 season resulted in a close, 21-14 loss to Lincoln County on Friday night at Carden-Jarrell Field, but despite the final score, head coach Brandon Harmon was impressed with his team’s overall effort.

“I thought that we competed well,” Harmon said afterwards. “That was the main goal for tonight, to see if we could come out and compete against a team that is physical year-in and year-out and match their physicality. At the same time, we wanted to see how well we would execute what we’ve worked on all summer, and tonight, I feel like we held our own pretty well.”

The varsity scrimmage was played with two 24-minute long halves, a running clock, no timeouts and non-contact jerseys on both quarterbacks.

Lincoln County received the ball first at their own 20, and while the Red Raider defense was able to force fourth down and a yard, the Falcons converted and continued to move the ball down field. The Falcons gained 35 yards on the ground in their first six plays, but their passing game wasn’t effective until they connected on a 43-yard pass on their seventh play for a touchdown at the 18:39 mark of the first half.

The Red Raiders moved swiftly to draw a response. On the first play of the drive from their own 20, Jordan Thompson gained three yards on a run, but on the second play, quarterback Kaysen Lowery broke through the Falcon defense on a 77-yard sprint to the endzone to tie the score at 7-7 with 17:41 remaining in the first period.

On the next Lincoln County possession, the Red Raiders were able to limit the run game well, allowing a three-yard run at the most, but the Falcons went two-for-four passing in their first eight plays, resulting in a gain of 39 yards. On their ninth play at the Coffee County 33, the Falcons dialed up another pass which was caught and destined for the endzone, but the Red Raiders forced a fumble and recovered on their own four.

The Red Raiders lost three yards on their first play of the next drive, backing themselves up to their own one-yard line, but two plays later, Lowery completed a 21-yard pass to Matthew White, pulling the offense out of a dangerous situation. Three plays after the big completion, the Red Raiders stalled out at their own 22 and were forced to punt to the Lincoln County 47.

Lincoln County took advantage of the good field position, reaching the end zone on four plays to take a 14-7 lead with over a minute remaining in the half.

Starting on their own 20, Coffee County was able to gain 44 yards on a 7 yard rush by Lowery and a pair of completions to Teagan Stem, but the clock ran out and the Raiders still faced a seven-point deficit entering the break.

The Red Raiders put together a solid drive to begin the first half. Again starting at their own 20, it took three plays for Coffee County to settle themselves inside Lincoln County territory; a 12-yard run by Stem, an eight-yard run by Thompson and a 15-yard catch by Stem at the Falcon 45. The next two plays resulted in a net loss of three yards, but Lowery connected with Thompson for a 36-yard completion on the sixth play and Thompson finished things off with a 12-yard run to tie the score at 14-14.

“That first drive coming out of halftime, …that’s the kind of football we want to play,” Coach Harmon said. “There probably would have been some different calls if quarterbacks weren’t called dead on a few of these plays tonight, so there were a lot of things that were left on the table, but offensively, I think we accomplished what we were hoping for.”

Lincoln County gained 24 yards rushing on their first two plays of the half, but four plays later, the Red Raiders forced the Falcons to punt.

Coffee County, starting on their own 11, was also forced to punt after reaching their own 27, and the Falcons got the ball back on their own 47.

After dropping the Falcons for a four-yard loss, and allowing an eight-yard pass, the Falcons faced a third-and-six at the Coffee County 49, but a 25-yard run on their third play and a defensive pass interference call on the fifth play put Lincoln County in prime position to score again, which they did with 1:05 left to play.

The Red Raiders were unable to cook anything up on their final three plays, and the Falcons escaped with a 21-14 win.

“I wanted us to run the same amount of running plays as passing plays tonight, and I think we executed well, we’ve just got some things to clean up,” said Harmon. “There’s always going to be cleanup, but that’s just part of the game. We got good film on a lot of things and our next step is to hopefully clean some stuff up on both sides of the ball. You take in the situationals that we had tonight, we’re playing with a running clock and we don’t have timeouts. Tonight was all about trying to get reps and use it as a lead up to Mt. Juliet, which will be more of a true game, with quarters and a regular clock. I think we’re on the right track and I’m excited to see it grow.”

After the varsity scrimmage, the JV squads played a single 20-minute period, and the Red Raiders picked up a 12-6 victory in that contest.

Coffee County will be at Carden-Jarrell Field again on Friday, Aug. 15 for their final pre-season scrimmage against Mt. Juliet.