Friday marked the Permian football team’s first practice in pads.

Pablo Olivares — a 6-foot, 290-pound senior offensive lineman — said there’s a different intensity when practicing in full pads.

That increased level of play will continue as the Panthers have the opportunity to stand toe-to-toe for a preseason scrimmage with Lubbock-Cooper next Friday in Lubbock.

“The momentum is faster and the contact is harder, so you have to be mentally strong,” Olivares said. “When someone hits you, it’s a whole different game. We have to come out here with the mindset of going into attack mode and not let anything bother us.”

Permian head coach Blake Feldt believed the team — collectively — preformed well for its first day in pads.

Yet, the area Feldt was most impressed with was the team’s ability to practice twice in a span of 16 hours. Permian — which practiced in the morning Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday — held its only evening practice on Thursday.

“It was a real good day,” Feldt said. “We were sharp. We had a quick turnaround from (Thursday). We practice (Thursday) evening and then back up here this morning. We practiced hard and did a lot of good things for the first morning in pads.”

The Panthers went through drills that pitted the first-team offense and defense against each other. Permian’s offensive playmakers — Brother Miller, Justin Hammond, Toddrick Robinson and Nakavieon White — each made catches against first-team defensive backs.

Rakeeb Adeyemi — a 6-foot, 175-pound junior cornerback — relished the opportunity to face some of the top playmakers in the District 2-6A. Adeyemi used strong bump-and-run coverage at the line scrimmage to acheive success against the offensive playmakers.

“Going up against those guys is a challenge and I’m just trying to keep getting better and do the best that I can,” said Adeyemi, who finished with 16 tackles, four pass breakups and one tackle for a loss during his sophomore campaign for the Panthers. “Going up against Brother and Nakavieon, they are way better guys than me (at 6-2 and 6-4, respectively). It helps me out.”

Though it was the first practice where teams had to hit and tackle each other, the Panthers stayed relatively healthy.
The only first-teamers that didn’t compete from start to finish was junior right guard Dawson Reynolds, who is coming off a knee injury from spring camp, and junior right tackle Landon Peterson had his left arm in sling. Reynolds wasn’t absent as he stood in the quarterback position during offensive line drills.

Olivares said offensive line has continued to improve through the first week of practice and he knows the importance of their camaraderie for success in run and pass games.

“We are trying to build up our unity,” he said. “If our offensive line is one unit, our offense is going to be one unit. We make the whole offense strong, so everything starts up front and our unit has to be the strongest one.”
Permian’s offense line will have another week to slowly inch closer to a solid unit before the team travels for its scrimmage against the Pirates.

The Panthers rolled Lubbock-Cooper a year ago. Permian’s offense scored 11 touchdowns, while the defense allowed one touchdown. Feldt said he never dwells on the score of the scrimmage, but he maintains the hope that the team plays crisp.

“We are excited about that,” Feldt said. “After two weeks, we will be ready to play somebody else. That first scrimmage isn’t a game, but at the same time, it’s important. You have to go out there, be sharp and play well.

“I’m never big on who won the scrimmage or who lost the scrimmage. You need to go out, play sharp, play hard, get after it and get better. A scrimmage is another practice, but you are practicing against somebody else. That’s a week before our first game. We have to have a great first scrimmage and we’ll find out a little bit about our team at that point in time.”
