BENTONVILLE -- It was a relatively quiet first day of practice for Bentonville's football team Monday morning until Harrison Rooney found a way to cause a commotion.
The senior inside linebacker intercepted a Kasey Ford pass attempt during one of the drills and ran the opposite direction, which gave the Tigers' defense and its coaches a reason to yell.
"That was good," Bentonville coach Barry Lunney said of Rooney, who earlier made an oral commitment to sign with Air Force. "Harrison is always around the football. We expect that out of him."
Otherwise, it was business as usual for the defending Class 7A state champion at Tiger Stadium. Bentonville hit the field running with a brisk 90-minute workout for its varsity players, just to see how much they have retained.
The result was a rather pleasing one for Lunney, now in his ninth year with the Tigers. There was still some tweaking and adjustments he had to do with the players, even though many of them were involved in team camps throughout the summer.
"I thought it was good," Lunney said. "We have a couple of players that we may be experimenting with at a position or two, and I don't think there was an issue with that. We got in and out of the huddle pretty well.
"It's just the matter of getting lined up correctly once you're out of the huddle. Sometimes you take those things for granted, but when offenses are coming out in different formations, you have to make the sure the defense is lining up correctly."
Ford, who threw for 1,846 yards and 22 touchdowns as a sophomore while leading the Tigers to the state title last fall, welcomed the return to preseason practices after splitting his summer between 7-on-7 competitions and baseball. He admitted, even with the offseason workouts, it still takes him a couple of days to knock the rust off and get into the full swing of workouts.
Despite the interception by Rooney, Ford still liked what he saw not only from himself, but those players who will attempt to fill the voids on this year's team.
"It felt great," Ford said. "All of us feel a little rusty, but we felt good. We connected as an offense, and we have really good team chemistry this year. I like our chances.
"I had some good balls, and I threw some bad balls. It's still going to be a couple of days before we really get into the hang of things. I thought we were pretty even with the defense out there."
The Tigers will don shoulder pads for the first time during Wednesday's practice, but Lunney said he will wait until Monday before his team will work out in full pads. Teams can hold their first practice in full pads Saturday.
Sports on 08/05/2014