BIDDEFORD — There will be a lot of firsts this season for the University of New England football team as the Nor’easters are entering their inaugural season.

On Friday afternoon, the UNE football program held its first ever Blue-White intrasquad scrimmage in front of a large crowd at the Big Blue Turf.

UNE head coach Mike Lichten was pleased with what he saw in the scrimmage, which lasted about an hour and featured impressive plays from the offense, defense and special teams.

“It’s just a process. It’s a day-by-day process, and some days the defense is going to be a little sharper and some days the offense is going to be ahead of that,” said Lichten. “What I was happy with was our procedure, our ability to substitute and our ability to adjust on the fly.”

Lichten conceded that his team still has plenty of work to do before they open their season at Curry College next Saturday.

“There is always room for improvement. I thought it was great that the kids got to come out and be physical for the first time and tackle to the ground, it’s always exciting to see that. (We have) some things to build on and some things we really have to focus on improving,” Lichten said.

UNE will play this season at the junior varsity level before heading to Division III’s top tier in 2018. While Lichten is looking for his team to pick up wins this year, he is also keeping his eye on the future.

“There are position battles every day. We talk about the opportunity to make the guy next to you better, the guy across from you better, so we do that on a consistent basis,” said Lichten. “Our goal this year is to develop the kids that are here and it’s tough to develop if you don’t play, so we intend to play everybody. We intend to give these guys a lot of (playing time) and give them the chance to kind of mature football wise in live action as much as possible.”

The UNE coach was thrilled to see a large group of fans in the bleachers on Friday afternoon.

“That’s indicative of the support we’ve had here. People care about what we’re doing, people want us to be successful from all areas of the college,” Lichten said. “This will be the only home contest we have all year and they were aware of that. It was great to see admissions here, great to see housing, student affairs and of course all the parents. You know this is their team and I want to harp on the fact that what we do represents all of the University of New England — good, bad or indifferent.”

— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at [email protected] or at 282-1535 ext. 322. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.