Scrimmage

[ponyboy]

We looked a little raw at times, but I wasn't disappointed at all. The purpose of the scrimmage was not to impress you and me. It was to try out some new schemes in a more pressured, gamelike format. And to take a look at some players who might or might not be able to contribute. One example was the use of walkon QB Tyler Chick.

As others have pointed out in this thread, we've seen the emergence of some genuine offensive threats. I look for a much improved team this season and was heartened by the scrimmage.

[SWC2010]

It was noted earlier that the play appeared to be sloppy and perhaps it was, but they were playing a lot of different combinations of players. I would think they are going to review the scrimmage films to see which combinations worked best or where they need to do some fine tuning. With having a better two deep situation than we had last year, I suspect that there will be a lot of substitutions during the games to keep the players fresh and there will be some slop until these guys get use to playing together. I think we will look much better at our first game as we still have two more weeks of practice to get the kinks out.

One thing I did notice was that the receivers were very focused and playing heads up ball. There were several instances when the ball bounced off a receiver and he would make second and third efforts to catch the ball and did. On a couple of other occasions, the first receiver had the ball tip off his hand and a second receiver down field made the heads up play to catch it.

We may not be world beaters yet, but I think we are way ahead of where we were last year at this time. The guys are bigger, stronger and faster.

................................

Good call PK. Cory Muse showed signs of ability to create havoc to the offense & the defense appeared ahead of the offense.

Offense:At QB, its Phillips job & Tech will be a good test for him. Devin Lowery finds a way to get open @WR. I think he will be a great asset to a thin corp of WR. Without Munlin it's hard see what the running game could become. But I believe the sleeper in last year's recruiting class will be DeMyron Martin (Allen Fr.). He only a got a carry or two, but like last week, he avg 8-9 yds each carry. Bennett may redshirt him, but I like what I see.

Even the Spec Teams showed improved scoring with a number of FG, inlcuding a 50 yd FG on the final play of the scrimmage. In the same breath, we need to find a deep snapper for punting.

All in all, it was an improvement from last scrimmage & nobody got hurt.

[Uncle Morty]

My Impressions:

1) When Grant Eidson left, I wondered who the deep snapper was going to be this year, and after the scrimmage it appears that the answer will be.... Nobody. I saw more than a couple snaps over peoples heads, or dribbling along the ground. Special teams could provide some very nervous moments this fall.

2) Alot of dropped balls.

3) As everyone else has already said, Avery looked very good, and Warren looked very quick.

4) The spread offenses stretches the field horizontally, but not vertically. Very few routes run more than 15 yards, no true deep routes. And its very static, when guys line up they stay rooted until the snap, very little backfield motion or changes in formation.

5) The first offensive line looked fine, the backups did not. The 2nd unit couldnt protect the QB.

6) Phillips scrambling, or keeping the ball on the option appears to be our best running play. The ground game still needs work.

[Damon'sDaMan]

True, the ground game needs work, but remember that Munlin wasn't in there. I think it will look a lot different when he gets in there and starts pounding people. And from what I understand, QB runs and short (slant) passes will basically serve as running plays, depending on how defenses line up against us.

And on top of all that, I have to believe Coach Burns has a bunch of things up his sleeve that weren't on display Saturday, just in case Tech had some fans there. It's a lot easier for us to guess what they're going to do. They've looked at Cincinnati tape, of course, but until they see what our personnel can do with Coach Burns's offense, it's sort of a guessing game.

[PonySnob]

The only question mark about Foy is what is his durability as an every down running back. He never got 25-30 carries every game during his brief playing career at Tech did he? We certainly need Massey or another RB to step up in the event that Foy goes down with an injury.

[davidsmu94]

So not to kick a guy while he is down, I know he had some personal issues come up, but what is up with Massey? Was he just overrated coming out of HS? or has his personal issues really weighed him down?

[buspen]

1) When Grant Eidson left, I wondered who the deep snapper was going to be this year, and after the scrimmage it appears that the answer will be.... Nobody. I saw more than a couple snaps over peoples heads, or dribbling along the ground. Special teams could provide some very nervous moments this fall.


I wondered how this was going to shape up as well, in the last two scrimmages before Saturday, the snaps were quick and consistantly good, this also carried over to a Sunday practice that seemed to focus on special teams. As far as Saturday, I noticed after the first punting series the snapper's left hand was cut and bleeding profusely over the next couple of series. He seemed to come back and do fine during all the FG attempts.

[Roach]

The only question mark about Foy is what is his durability as an every down running back. He never got 25-30 carries every game during his brief playing career at Tech did he? We certainly need Massey or another RB to step up in the event that Foy goes down with an injury.

Tha's true, we always need backups. But to be fair, Munlin didn't have a ton of carries at Tech because they had other talented RBs (Henderson, etc.) He certainly has the size and strength to handle the load, though. Time will tell.