NATCHITOCHES -- Northwestern State reaches a milestone Saturday morning with its biggest scrimmage of spring football practice as new coach Jay Thomas sends the Demons through an anticipated 85-snap contest beginning at 9:40 a.m. in Turpin Stadium.
 
The Demons will hit the field for warmups at 9 and get down to business 40 minutes later in "good on good" competition, with the No. 1 units squaring off over 45 plays and the No. 2's battling for 40 snaps.
 
The scrimmage will be the most extensive under Thomas before next Saturday's 24th Annual Joe Delaney Bowl spring game. It will be the 11th day in spring drills, which began March 20 and halted for spring break following Easter.
 
The competition will include a goalline scrimmage and some fourth-down action as available, during series starting at various points on each side of the field.

"We'll challenge the offense to drive the football, move the sticks. We want to finish every drive with a kick, obviously, not a turnover. On defense, we want 3-and-outs. We'll play it like a game as much as we can," said Thomas.
 
"We'll look at some different combinations with personnel, get a good look at guys playing up to see how they handle themselves," he said. "We'll see how it goes and if we can, we sneak in a few more plays. We'll incorporate the kicking game as we go along, without contact on that segment."
 
The three practices this week have been productive although the first one was less than stellar coming out of spring break, said Thomas.
 
"It went slow early in the week. We were off for nine days and did get out of our routine, but we got better later in the week. We had a really good practice Thursday across the board, got a lot done, and we're back on track," he said.