Eau Claire (WQOW) -- If you were just driving past Simpson Field Monday, UWEC football practice probably didn't look a whole lot different than it has in the past couple weeks.
But there's a different vibe Monday, as it's game week for the Blugolds. UW-Eau Claire opens up at home Saturday afternoon against St. Thomas (MN). The Tommies are ranked 8th nationally in the D3 Football.com preseason poll.
UWEC hosted a scrimmage last week. The Blugolds say that helped them prepare for what's ahead.
UW-Eau Claire senior quarterback Austin Neu says, "We saw what our line could do, saw what they couldn't, saw what we needed to improve on, what our backfield and receivers could improve on, we got a good look at everything, we got to run a lot of plays, and it was really successful."
"We played pretty well," says Blugolds defensive lineman Matt Hawley, "we tightened up some things in the secondary, up front, just be more gap sound, assignment sound, just improve."
"Every scrimmage is like that a little bit," says UWEC head coach Todd Glaser, "the good, the bad, the ugly, and there's some things we did really well, and there's some things that we have to correct, that we corrected, hopefully, last week in practice, and we just have to refine it in practice with St. Thomas coming in."
The Blugolds and Tommies meet Saturday, in a 3:10 P.M. kickoff at Carson Park.
