Friday scrimmage

[PonyPride]

The SMU football team practiced in a scrimmage-style format Friday. Stats were not kept, either officially or unofficially. Some observations:

• Head coach Chad Morris said before practice that numerous players were being held out. Some injuries are more serious than others, but the coaches and training staff were erring on the side of caution. LB Jordan Carmouche was in a green (limited) jersey and didn't play. Among those in the yellow (out) jerseys were DE Justin Lawler, WR Xavier Castille, RB Braeden West, WR Joshua Shelmore, OT Chad Pursley, LB R.C. Cox, WR Brandon Benson, RB Xavier Jones, S Collin Rock, S Mikial Onu and S Michael Clark.
• Nick Natour, who played much of the time last season at LT in place of the injured Chad Pursley, remained with the starting offensive line, but slid inside to play guard. The starting offensive line featured LT Kadarius Smith, LG Natour, C Evan Brown, RG Jerry Saena and RT Bryce Wilds. They were backed up by LT Braxton Webb, LG Braylon Hyder, C Harrison Barton, RG Rex Printz and RT Jacob Todora.
• The offense got off to a nice start: on the first play from scrimmage, RB Ke'Mon Freeman ran around the left end, ran through an arm tackle and didn't stop until he'd gone 82 yards to the end zone.
• Ben Hicks and Rafe Peavey split time at QB. Everyone saw Hicks last fall when he took over the starting role after the injury to Matt Davis. But for many, Friday was the first chance to see Peavey, who practiced with the Mustangs' scout team in the fall. He showed a live arm, snapping throws with pretty good accuracy, including a couple of deep balls and fastballs to the perimeter on intermediate-length out routes. He threw one deep route of about 45 yards that ended up being dropped, so it never would show up even if stats were kept, but the throw was fantastic, as he placed the ball over the WR's outside shoulder where the DB had no chance to get to it. Two Peavey touchdown passes were called back because of penalties, as was a touchdown pass from Hicks to WR James Proché. Meanwhile, transfer QB D.J. Gillins — who Morris said before practice will not take part in any team (11-on-11) drills this spring — lined up 10-15 yards behind the quarterbacks and mimicked the timing of taking the snap, reading the defense and throwing the ball. What he can do really won't be evident until the fall, but he doesn't seem like a guy content to sit back and simply accept a backup job.
• CB Cedric Lancaster is back on the team.
• DBs had three interceptions in the early going, the nicest of which was turned in by freshman S Elijah McQueen. Hicks fired a deep ball down the right sideline to WR Courtland Sutton, who battled CB Jordan Wyatt for the ball in mid-air. They both looked like they got a hand on it, but neither made the catch. As they fell one way, the ball fell back in toward the middle of the field, and McQueen dove to make the pick just before the ball hit the ground.
• WR Trey Quinn made several good plays, including a beautiful one-handed touchdown grab on a pass from Hicks late in the scrimmage. Morris has said the coaches want to think of multiple ways to get the ball in Quinn's hands, including running it and playing a role in special teams, but one running play did not succeed because there simply was no room. He has very good speed, and appears to have the ability to make would-be tacklers miss, but by the time he got the ball, he looked up and was staring into the face of DE Delontae Scott, who gotten into the backfield and swallowed up Quinn before he could get out of first gear.
• Ps Jamie Sackville and Alex Melvin got more work in warm-ups than during the scrimmage. Just about every punter will insist that consistency always can be improved, and that's true, but each had a handful of punts of 40 or more yards with good hang time. From what I saw, Sackville did more traditional spiral punts than the end-over-end rugby-style punts he broke out last season.
• Maybe the best kick of the day was a kickoff by K Josh Williams, who hit a line drive out of the back of the end zone ... about 70 yards away ... into a fairly stiff wind.
• Demerick Gary, who got considerable playing time at DE as a freshman, got extensive work at DT as the coaches experiment with combinations, etc.
• Quinn's one-handed touchdown pass normally would have been easily been the catch of the day, but would have to share the honor Friday with a snag by senior WR Shelby Walker. Peavey took the snap and rolled out to his right, and Walker paused for a moment while trying to get around the CB covering him. When he saw Peavey on the move, Walker started again and Peavey threw a strike out in front of Walker, who snagged the back half of the ball with a sensational one-handed catch before racing into the end zone. Walker had a nice evening; on another play in the red zone, he caught a pass at about the 8-yard line, started and stopped to create a little separation before splitting two defenders as he dove forward to about the 2.
• Overall, it felt like the offense had more highlight plays (i.e.Freeman's long touchdown run, the scoring catches by Quinn and Walker) than steady production ... or the defense looks improved — depends how you look at it. The front seven, with guys like DT Mason Gentry, Gary, DT J.T. Williams, DE Delontae Scott, and several LBs, including Anthony Rhone, Matt McNew, Kyran Mitchell and Jordan Ward, looked pretty good at times.
• A bunch of SMU football alumni were in attendance, including QB Garrett Gilbert (now of the Carolina Panthers), QB Matt Davis, DE/LS Zach Wood (now of the Dallas Cowboys), DE/LB/special teams ace Spike Davis (now a standout rugby player), LB Brenden Ahern, WR Der'Rikk Thompson, QB Darrell Colbert, DE Jarvis Pruitt and DE Zelt Minor.

[etpony]

Nice write up PonyPride. I enjoyed the visit before the scrimmage as always. Thanks for your work.

[Horseshoe]

How often did Sutton go up against Wyatt? How did that work out?

[Stallion]

Sutton barely played-he dropped a well placed pass over his shoulder for about 25 yards