Cougars gear up for scrimmage at Knox Central (KY) tonight

It’s a battle of felines tonight – Cougars and Panthers kickoff at 6pm at Panther Field

By Clayton Carroll

JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF) – The Cougars travel to Barbourville, Kentucky, for their second scrimmage of the pre-season. Campbell fell to Seymour in the opening scrimmage 21-0.

Campbell had just finished up its Election Day practice on Thursday with a strong lift and a film session, prepping for the Panthers. “Physicality is what we are looking for. We wanna be a physical football team, and that starts in the weight room,” said second-year head coach Taylor Ownbey. 

“We’re looking to clean up a couple things between the Seymour scrimmage and this one,” Ownbey mentioned.  The Cougars found themselves in the red zone twice against the Eagles, and were unable to capitalize on those opportunities.

One thing that Ownbey said the Cougars have to improve on is their defense. “We’ve got to tackle. We teach them properly every day…it’s a want to. We’ve got to want to tackle when the lights come on,” Coach O declared. 

“Hopefully we can finish drives offensively. We moved the ball fairly well last Friday, and we just couldn’t to put it in the end zone. We’re trying to teach them how to finish,” Ownbey added.

The Cougars have two more pre-season games before the real deal on August 21 versus Lenoir City. This scrimmage against Knox Central tonight and the Jamboree at Carson-Newman on August 14 will finish the preseason work.

The 52nd season commences at “Jack” Reynolds Field two weeks from today against the Lenoir City Panthers. Les Martin, Brent Allen, and Jake Miller will bring you all of the coverage over the WLAF Doyle’s Tire Sports Network which consists of AM 1450, FM 100.9, TV Channel 1089, 1450wlaf.com, Roku TV, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Alexa, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED 8-7-2026 6AM)