Featured Photo: UT Martin Skyhawks head coach Jason Simpson observes his players’ warm up prior to Navy and White game at Hardy M. Graham Stadium, on April 17, 2025. (Pacer Photo / Nate Szarzynski)
On Friday Apr. 17, 2026, the UT Martin Football held their annual spring Navy and White Game.
In a public scrimmage, the navy and white game showcased some new faces on the coaching staff and allowed player evaluations for coaching. It is also an outlet for future recruits to come and witness a live showing of practice.
What started at around 6 p.m. was warm ups for players. Immediately followed by drills and a full scrimmage.
During drills a couple players stood out, mainly quarterbacks.
At the start, up first was number one Julian Calvez. Calvez started drills hot with some beautiful over the shoulder throws, and good accuracy on sideline passes. Later in full scrimmage Calvez did struggle, mostly on the run, with accuracy and threw an interception late in the scrimmage.
The upside Calvez had was his scrambling ability, although not the most accurate while scrambling, Calvez bursted past the line of scrimmage for some good rushes.
Afterwards, number eight Tate Surber who, much like Calvez was throwing good passes in drills and even finding a small opening in the back of the end zone for a touchdown that was threaded through two defenders.
Later in the scrimmage, Surber was the only quarterback that was throwing deep balls and had great flashes mostly from the shotgun formation.
“I think the back Greg Ard made some good runs today, he is new with us transferred from Boise State, he caught my my eye a little bit,” said head coach Jason Simpson. “I was proud of our defense limiting a lot of big plays, but moving forward we need to be more explosive on offense.”
Simpson plans to work with some guys over the offseason to set out for certain goals this season.
“As we go into the offseason there is some guys who will gain a few pounds, there some guys that can work on there bodies and develop some more strength on weakness that they have. Then you know, there’s just a lot of details that can be coached out this summer you know when we’ve got almost 40 new guys and get 15 practices, everyday there’s a new install so they can see the big picture of things,” said Simpson.
With the first two games played at home next season, Simpson has high hopes of a better start than last season’s 1-5 start to the season after a road gauntlet.
“The schedule is a lot different this year, not that it is not difficult this year it certainly is, but we get to play at home the first two games and that’s huge for us.”
