The Greenville Tigers are tending to their own backyard, proverbially speaking, Thursday night with an intersquad game that will split the roster down the middle.

Greenville head football coach Josh McLendon said that a number of factors made the intersquad game favorable to seeking an outside opponent.

“A lack of time to prepare, and getting in here so late, we just felt like it was in our best interest to have an intersquad game,” McLendon said.

“Not that the expectations aren’t always going to be high, but we didn’t want to put something on the field that wasn’t up to standards, and we felt like we needed to focus on ourselves going into the spring, and make sure that we were taking care of what we need to take care of and go from there.

“We’ll get plenty of competition in the summer and the fall.”

Fortunately for McLendon, the transition from McKenzie back to Greenville hasn’t been much of a transition at all.

“Obviously, it’s a lot more, being a bigger program and with more kids, but it has been easier in the sense that I know all of the players—I coached them all before and taught them in middle school,” McLendon added.

“There’s been no learning curve as far as finding or learning names.  It’s just more to deal with as far as day-to-day responsibilities, and more sports to deal with, being the athletic director.  That’s been the only difference.”

The bulk of McLendon’s focus has been on the field, though the Tigers won’t have much of an adjustment to make from the previous years.

Things will stay the same defensively for Greenville, and the Tigers will still make use of the spread offense with a slight change in terminology from what the players are accustomed to.

“A lot of it is just reverting back to what we were doing a few years ago with the same formations,” McLendon said.

McLendon will be eyeing Thursday night’s scrimmage closely for the basic fundamentals, but three items top his list.

“Can they get lined up right, do they know what to do and what is their effort like,” McLendon said.

“Alignment, assignment and effort—that’s what we’re looking for.”

The Tigers will square off against one another Thursday night at 6 p.m.