Maroon & Gold football scrimmage, annual benchmark that signals season just two weeks away, kicks off Friday at 6 p.m.

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The annual Maroon & Gold football scrimmage is scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday, which of course means the season-opener is just two weeks away, so close you can almost hear the band playing, see old friends you haven’t seen since last autumn and smell the excitement in the air.
“The neat thing about having the Maroon & Gold scrimmage is opening the doors to our community, getting a little excitement about the start of the football season,” Chesterton coach Mark Peterson said. “Last year, we had pushing maybe 500 people who showed up, enjoying that enthusiasm and that excitement and then having the opportunity to play in much more of a game-like environment. We’ll have officials there. We’ll be in full tackle mode. It will be constructed but at the same time it will be much more game-like than just practice where we’re blowing a whistle and starting a new play. We’ll actually move the ball.”
There will be no score kept. The talent won’t be split. In other words, there won’t be one quarterback playing for one team, another quarterback playing for the other. The quarterbacks will split reps.
Still, it has more of a game feel than a typical practice.
“I think it helps knock off the first-game anxiety because you have fans there and it kind of feels like a game, but at the of the day you’re just going against your guys and you’re going as hard as you can,” senior tight end Mike Rone said. “Beforehand, it does feel like a game, with fans in the stands and under the lights and stuff.”
The Trojans have their final dress rehearsal Friday, Aug. 15 at Hammond Central at 6 p.m.
The Trojans are coming off a 6-5 season that ended with a 28-21 loss at Valparaiso in the sectional title game.