There is only so much you can learn about a football team during 7-on-7 drills.
Do you have a quarterback? Can your receivers get open and catch? Can your defensive backs, you know, defend the pass?
Once they're out on the field, you find out pretty fast which teams can answer those questions with "yes" and which ones have a lot of work to do before fall camp opens in early August.
That, mostly, is for the coaches. They are around the kids in the offseason and are guiding them through drills and workouts. They know what their own potential is, but on the field is where you start to see it.
For people like me, who are not around the kids much in the offseason unless they're playing basketball, wrestling or are on the baseball team, 7-on-7 season is often a first look at what progress has been made since the previous fall.
Take Riverside, for example.
The Warriors were one of 12 teams - along with Point Pleasant, Sherman, Herbert Hoover, South Charleston, Chapmanville, Scioto East (Ohio), Sissonville, Buffalo, George Washington, Winfield and Mount View - to participate Thursday at West Virginia State's 7-on-7 tournament in Institute (Point Pleasant and Chapmanville both brought enough players for two teams, bumping the total number of participants up to 14). Third-year coach Zach Davis gets a bunch of varsity experience back from last season, including quarterback Mark Scites. When I arrived at State's campus and found the guys in purple, I didn't see Scites. I spoke to Davis and asked exactly who was returning for the Warriors and who would play quarterback. My planned follow-up was to ask what happened to Scites, but before I could get there Davis said the senior was still his guy at quarterback.
He was standing about 10 feet in front of me and I didn't recognize him. Scites has put on weight, but the good kind. He looks bigger and stronger. Watching him on the field you can tell, at least in the 7-on-7 setting, he has improved.
"He was an All-State player last year and does a really good job with our offense," Davis said of his quarterback.
Scites, who received special honorable mention on last season's Class AAA All-State team, and the Warriors went from multiple consecutive winless seasons to the brink of the playoffs last season. Riverside finished as the runner-up at Concord's 7-on-7 tournament recently and repeated that finish Thursday at WVSU, falling to Chapmanville in the championship game.
Add that together and you get expectations in Quincy higher than they've been in a long time. Davis is OK with that. He doesn't put too much stock in evaluating a team based on 7-on-7 games, but seeing his team come together and compete for championships, even in just helmets and T-shirts, is a welcome sight.
"Seven-on-7 is what it is," he said. "You're running around in pajamas, but our guys compete really well. They're never going to be the biggest, never going to be the fastest. Our guys, they're fighters. They're going to go until they have nothing left."
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Like Riverside, Winfield was a team on the brink in 2016. The Generals fought through several absolute battles in a rugged Cardinal Conference, which produced eventual Class AA state champion Mingo Central. The Generals made the playoffs for the first time since 2005 but lost 38-28 in the first round to James Monroe.
Also like Riverside, Winfield brings back a lot of varsity experience. As an added bonus to that, the Generals possess a rare gem in terms of high school football - a four-year starting quarterback.
Andrew Huff returns for his senior season with Winfield after earning second-team All-State honors as an offensive utility player last season as a junior. The Generals have done well during 7-on-7 season with a strong showing last week at Marshall. Huff, however, did not participate Thursday at WVSU. Winfield coach Craig Snyder said he was fine, just giving the senior's arm a break after grinding through several 7-on-7 tournaments in the last few weeks.
"His arm is just sore from all this throwing, so we've been going with Nick Vance," Snyder said Thursday. "Nick was the Kanawha Valley Rookie of the Year last year as a receiver, but he's our backup quarterback and he's pretty good."
As for Huff, who threw for more than 1,800 yards and ran for more than 1,100 last season, Snyder knows he rode the then-junior more often than he would have liked last season. Another thing Snyder knows about Huff is that he can trust him in the trenches.
"Andrew knows what I'm thinking, it's really uncanny," Snyder said. "He's a smart kid and that's why we're so good in the 7-on-7s. He puts the ball right where it is supposed to go every time. We don't really do anything different in the 7-on-7s than we do in games. The receivers are good and he is excellent. He's not our make-or-break player, but he drives us.
"He's a quarterback, but he's not just a quarterback. He's a tough football player."
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Did you know we have a new prep sports blog here at the Gazette-Mail? It's called The Varsity Blog and it has been live for a few days now.
So far it has just been me posting whatever has been on my mind as far as prep sports are concerned. Expect to see posts and insight from our prep sports reporters Rick Ryan and Ryan Pritt in the near future.
Right now, for example, you could venture over to The Varsity Blog to see a photo gallery of my personal favorite prep football photos from last season or to read what I think about all of the offensive-line talent coming out of Spring Valley and Huntington. Of course, we will be adding more and different kinds of content every day.
The plan is to have the new blog humming along by the time the fall high school sports seasons gets started, and we can't do it without you. Give us a visit at blogs.wvgazettemail.com/thevarsityblog and let us know what you think. You can comment, tweet, send messages on Facebook or go the old-fashioned route and email us. If you like what you see, be sure to come back and also to share our work with your fellow prep sports-loving friends.
July will go by fast and August will be here before we know it. If you want to keep up and get the best coverage of high school sports in the state, the Gazette-Mail and The Varsity Blog are the places for you.
Contact Tom Bragg at 304-348-4871 or tom.bragg@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomBraggSports.