The first opportunity for the new coaching staff at Brownwood High School to see how the Lions football team fares against someone other themselves takes place Thursday evening with a scrimmage against the Wichita Falls Legacy Leopards.

“All a scrimmage is, is a glorified practice against somebody else,” Lions first-year head coach Jeryl Brixey said in preparation for Thursday’s meeting. “We’re using this week to get better, next week to get better, then go into the Wylie game with more of a game mentality. But these next two weeks are just practice weeks and we’re going to get a practice in every day we can get one in.”

The scrimmage will take place at Wichita Falls Legacy High School – not Memorial Stadium. The high school is located on the east side of Wichita Falls at 3003 Henry Grace Freeway. The freshmen will start the action at 5 p.m., the JV will follow at 6 p.m., with the varsity to hit the field at 7 p.m. for about 90 minutes of work, according to Brixey.

“We’re going to have two freshmen groups going,” Brixey said. “Both groups will get plenty of reps. It won’t be a real long scrimmage because there’s not a lot of kids on either of those teams or Legacy’s teams, but we’re going to get that done. Then we’re going with our JV after that and follow with varsity. The varsity will follow the standard format of a certain number of controlled plays by our No. 1 offense and their No. 1 defense, then the 2s. After the controlled scrimmage we’ll probably have a live quarter, the quarterbacks will be dead, then we’ll go from there.”

Legacy is a member of District 2-5A Division II and posted an 0-10 record in its first season since Wichita Falls ISD reshuffled its high schools. Greg Davis, the former defensive coordinator at Mansfield Lake Ridge, takes over as head coach of the program, which returns 28 of 38 lettermen, including eight offensive and five defensive starters.

Players to watch for Legacy this season include quarterback Knox Hodges along with receivers Jourian Wiggins, Josiah Carter, Ben Barnard and Ke’shad Johnson, running back Kevin Riddle, defensive backs Da’Kendrick Jones and Terry McGowan, linebackers Charlie Thomas and Adrian Martinez, and linemen Daiquan Moses and Cooper Skelton.

A season ago, the Leopards averaged 17 points and yielded 46 on average per contest. Legacy is in the same district with Abilene Wylie – who the Lions did not face in the 2024 season opener due to weather, but will battle when the 2025 regular seasons kicks off Aug. 29 – as the Leopards dropped that contest 49-19.

“The head coach there is a friend of mine, Greg Davis, we worked together before,” Brixey said. “He’s taking over what was a new program that struggled a little, and he’s playing the numbers game at at 5A level about like us.”

Key contributors back from last year’s offense for the Lions are quarterback Judson Coalson, receiver Carson Noe, Grant Gray who has seen time at tight end, and Levi Pearson has received the bulk of the work in the backfield thus far. In the trenches, Aiden Packheiser and Logan Flores are the most experienced members of that unit.

Through preseason practices and the intrasquad scrimmage, the defense has featured Brinson Martin and Isaac Gonzales at linebackers, Raven Prado and Nick Rodriguez at the corners and Cavin Webster at one of the safeties. Another safety, Wyatt Wolf is currently hobbled, while varsity newcomer Christian Gray is making noise on the defensive front.

As for what Brixey wants to see from the scrimmages, he said, “We’re going to keep it very vanilla, both of the scrimmages, we’re not going to try and out-scheme Legacy or out-scheme Alvarado, just run our base stuff and work really hard to get better at that,” Brixey said. “What I want to see is improvement in the basics of what we do offensively and defensively, and I want to see us play hard. I want to see linemen 20 yards down the field chasing safeties, I want to see 11 guys running to the football on defense, I want to us blocking our schemes crisply, looking like the play’s suppose to look like. We had too many mental busts Saturday, things we need to get fixed. I want to see us throw and catch the football, I want to see great ball security by our running backs and receivers when they carry the football. Those are the things that are ultimately going to win football games, how well you do the fundamentals.”