Scrimmage #1 Report

It went like a usual first scrimmage. They went really deep into the roster so the ones and even the twos took a bit of a break during the middle of the scrimmage.

Offensively, the usual guys made their usual plays. I don’t know that any team in the conference can match up with our receivers. Dez and Whitehead are just so big. And Smith made some catches and two great runs on reverses. Murphy, Watts and Wilson. And then the other young guys waiting in the wings: Moore, Gordon.

Enough about the receivers. We got there a few minutes late. I don’t know if Howard played the first series but I don’t think he took a single snap (other than as the backup holder for field goals) after we got there. That left Taylor to work with the 1s and Hildebrand with the 2s. Got our first chance to see Hunter Moore in more game like action. If love to know if Howard is hurt or if they were holding him out to keep him from getting hurt. He didn’t look too happy on the sidelines most of the time but I saw him smile some toward the end.

The same can be said for Willie for the most part. Didn’t get a lot of touches until the goalline stuff. But he looked fine. Veasley, Warren and (I’m telling you) Daniels all look really promising. I think we are really deep at RB but they are also pretty different in styles. I’m interested to see how we use them all. I haven’t even mentioned Anderson (big) and Wells (who came from MGCCC).

Having said all that my remaining question is can we just run the ball straight ahead. I think the read option stuff will help but we haven’t been able to just line up and run it for a guaranteed yard for a while. I think this could be the year our offensive line is good enough to do that.

Defensively, Aum’Arie Wallace was the standout on a couple of plays. It’s not as easy for me to comment on the defense because it’s hard to watch both. I also wasn’t able to jot down the first team defense before they were off the field. Once the first team defense got back out there it seemed like there was some mixing in at positions. Anyway, other than the two reverses, they did ok. There were some plays made against the defense, but if the offense didn’t make plays I’d be even more worried. If Derek Floyd can stay healthy, I think this is the year everyone finds out how good he is. We know that Woodard is going to be good on the other side. (Is Woodard wearing #99? Because if not, I have no idea who was playing defensive end with the 1s and 2s because there’s no 99 on the roster.)  And TJ in the middle should mean the front 3 is solid. The young guys who got some real time last season (Eric Smith, Partee and Tolliver) should be providing the depth.

The linebackers and secondary are the places that we’re going to see a lot of new names. Wallace and Winfrey appear to playing some kind of Nickelbacker position or something. I think Van Hook may be the other guy at that spot. Wyatt, Holland and Childress look like they could be the guys in the middle. Some of the cornerbacks that were out there don’t even show up on the roster: 20, 25. We know about Dominique Brown, but Prince Ene and Haywood Jeffries are some of the others out on receivers. Mitchell, Watkins, Wellmaker and #33, 14 and 50 were back at safety. The incomplete roster was brutal.

We ran out of the pistol, the two back shotgun, had a big formation with #89, Walker, Carmical overloading one side. I wonder if scrimmage #2 will be more of the same, more of the 1s and 2s or more of a last chance for the young guys to grab some playing time. Summer session #2 is over, so two-a-days start this week. Hopefully we can make it through the week without any significant injuries.