NATCHITOCHES – With only a week left in spring practice, Northwestern State football coach Brad Laird is hoping to see lots of progress and some separation in position battles Saturday morning in the Demons' second major scrimmage this month.
 
The Demons hope to get in about 90 plays, plus special teams work, beginning at 10 a.m. in Turpin Stadium.
 
"We're looking for improvement – from yesterday, and from last Saturday's first scrimmage," said Laird. "We'll have officials for the second time this spring, and there are some things we need to clean up.
 
"The biggest thing is consistency. We've talked a lot about that this spring and last season, and we need to continue to see that. Hopefully some guys in certain areas will step up. If not, we'll continue to move forward as we gear up for the Joe Delaney Bowl next Saturday," he said.
 
NSU wraps up spring drills next Saturday at 2 with the 30^th Annual Joe Delaney Bowl.
 
The scrimmage format will be the same as it was last Saturday, with series beginning in different locations on the field and following a normal game flow.
 
Saturday's contest will be the 11^th of 15 workouts this spring. Getting some clarity in position battles is important, said Laird, with the receivers' corps a focal point on offense.
 
"Not that they need to do better by any means, but we are looking for guys to separate themselves. That's a position where we lost a lot of production from last year, and we need to find receivers who are going to step forward and expand their roles," he said.
 
In the first scrimmage last Saturday, the offense suffered only one turnover and produced 456 passing yards on 54 attempts (36 completions, a 12.7 average per catch by 14 different receivers). That production leads to an obvious objective for the Purple Swarm defense.
 
"Shoring up some areas to prevent big plays," said Laird. "We gave up some last Saturday because we had the wrong rotation in the back end. We need more consistency there, keeping the ball in front of us."
 
While finding plenty of reasons to praise players who have impressed coaches this month, Laird cited three who have been standouts.
 
"(Senior running back) Stadford Anderson played some quality snaps last year, but with Jared West out this spring, Stadford has put himself in position to get more playing time. Not only from a production standpoint, where he's done a great job running the football and catching it, but I think his pass protection is really improved because he's a lot more comfortable in the scheme.
 
"(Senior defensive tackle) O'Shea Jackson is really showing up on the defensive front, and on the back end, (sophomore cornerback) Shemar Bartholomew has continued to improve in year two after starting a couple times for us as a true freshman last season."
 
NSU will stage three regular workouts next week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday before the spring game Saturday.