The Troy Trojans will close out the first half of spring practice with a student appreciation practice on Thursday and a scrimmage on Saturday morning inside Veterans Memorial Stadium.

The Trojans are seven practices into their spring schedule, and for first-year head coach Chip Lindsey, it’s gone by too fast.

“It’s crazy, I can’t believe that,” Lindsey said. “I feel like it has flown by. I think we are making the right progress:, obviously we have a few scrimmages that we can get to starting this weekend.”

The first scrimmage of the spring will be this Saturday. The Trojans will scrimmage for approximately two hours in front of the Trojan crowd.

“I think that will be big for us,” Lindsey said. “In a scrimmage situation, things happen faster and things happen that you can’t predict, so that’s what we need. We are ready to get going.”

On Tuesday, the Trojans held practice number seven. They wore helmets and shoulder pads and had the look of a team that is halfway through spring practice.

“We made progress,” Lindsey said. “You can tell we are midway through. People get spirited out there, which is good. We need to play with an edge out there, but we need to make sure we stay under control and we did for the most part. I just like that our guys are competitive. One thing about them is they take it seriously and they are not just out here killing time.”

With the scrimmage set for Saturday, Lindsey and the Trojans will put their communication to the test and see where they are when they go live on the field for the first time.

“We don’t want communication mistakes,” Lindsey said. “That goes to the offensive line up front making calls, defensive line making checks, quarterback communicating. All the way around, we have to make sure that’s good.”

Protecting the ball on offense and forcing turnovers on defense will be another point of emphasis on Saturday. In the end, Lindsey would like to see a continuation of what he has seen during practice.

“I just really want our guys to continue doing what we have been doing,” Lindsey said. “Come out here and go to work and have a lot of energy, to improve each time out. The scrimmage will be a really good test for us.”

The Trojans will wind down spring practice on April 20 when they host the annual T-Day Game at noon at Veterans Memorial Stadium.