Are you ready for some Blue Devil football?

West Memphis travels to Batesville for preseason scrimmage

WM School District After a long spring and a summer full of competition, the West Memphis Blue Devils finally line up and play against an opponent with the regular season on the horizon.

The Blue Devils kick off the 2019 season Aug. 27 at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock against Little Rock Central in the Bank of England Mortgage Kickoff Classic presented by 103.7 The Buzz.

Game time is set for 5 p.m.

But West Memphis will get a final chance at preseason on Tuesday when they travel to Batesville for a scrimmage against the Pioneers.

Kickoff is set for 6 p.m.

Head coach Billy Elmore said he thinks his squad is ready for the test at Batesville.

“I think we’re ready. The biggest thing is we do so much during the summer offensively and defensively,” said Elmore, whose squad went 11-1 last year in winning the 6A-East Conference championship. “One of the things we’ve been doing in practice is working on special teams.

Now, what we’ll be doing special teams-wise will be dead ball stuff, but just getting the units out there and have them do the right things and making sure we’re not having to burn a timeout will be important.”

This will be the fourth consecutive year the Blue Devils have played Batesville in a preseason scrimmage and the second time during that frame to travel to Batesville.

“We want to go out and put a wrap on everything we’ve done this summer,” Elmore added. “It’s time now to get into game mode. As a coach you know it’s not going to be 100 percent polished because its the first scrimmage but this is something we need to kick-start us into game mode.”

Last year the Blue Devils played the night-cap of a doubleheader at War Memorial Stadium. Game time didn’t arrive until 8:15 p.m. But this year the Blue Devils play the first game of the Bank of England Mortgage event.

In 2018, junior quarterback Owens McConnell completed 14 of 25 passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns in West Memphis’ 35-0 win over Little Rock Central.

McConnell was named the game’s Most Outstanding Player, and he returns this year to direct the Blue Devil offense.