Thursday Scrimmage

[IslandBoy]

Just saw this on SMUMustangs.com:

Open Scrimmage Set For Thursday
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, April 7, 2004

DALLAS (SMU) - As spring practice nears a close, the SMU football team will hold a scrimmage on Thursday, April 8, at 2:45 p.m. in Gerald Ford Stadium.

With just three sessions remaining prior to the Red-Blue Game on April 17, Head Coach Phil Bennett will provide fans a preview of the 2004 squad.

“It’s been fun this spring,” said Bennett. “We’ve got competition at every position, and that’s something we haven’t had in my time here.”

In addition to the competition for starting spots, spring practice has seen several players move to new positions. Fred Turner has moved to wide receiver, while Don Ieremia-Stansbury and Rico Harris are at linebacker and Johnnie Fitzgerald plays in the secondary, just to name a few.

The scrimmage is free and open to the public.

[ponyboy]

I just remembered a 2:30 doctor's appointment tomorrow

[ponyboy]

Wanted to move this post back up to the top to remind everyone of today's scrimmage. Hope to see you there!

[Fooball]

Any update from the scrimmage would be greatly appreciated for us out-of-towners.

[Dooby]

Yes, and for us poor b@st@rds that have to work and have already used the doctor excuse this week.

[Mike Damone]

I went for the second half of the scrimage. Strange seeing four receiver sets. Never saw #1 offense vs. #1 defense. To be honest, I watched probably forty plays and only saw one completion, from Rowland, on the first string defense for a touchdown. Probably saw 20 incompletions. Not impressive. Don't want to sound negative, but none of the qb's looked very good. Phillips ran well. Maybe its just learning a new offense and timing with receivers. Maybe they tore it up in the first half that I missed.

Hopefully the spring game will show us more.

On a positive note, it did look like a lot of the newcomers are going to be starting this year. Phillips and Eckert were rotating with the first string. Munlin looks to be starting, as do Lowery and Chase at recievers. Not going to try and spell his name, but the corner from Air Force was playing with the first string as well.

[GoRedGoBlue]

FOY looked REALLY strong

QBs:

For what it's worth, I thought that the QBs performed in groups:

(these aren't grades, but levels of how they performed relative to each other).

Eckert, Phillips, then
Meeks, Romo, then
Nixon, Rowland

They seemed to miss on deep balls.

Eckert seems to have the most zip but struggles on deeper balls, Romo tends to run and is quite good at scrambling, Phillips possesses the best all-around of every skill (run,pass,scramble) but is a bit erratic on short passes. Romo's arm isn't as strong as the others. Nixon looked good at times.

Duke Hasson played some possession WR.

The DEs seemed to step it up.

Our kicking game concerns me, Wolcott can't get it off the ground, McMurtry is erratic but made most of them. Meeks isn't our backup punter hopefully. the first team punter booted them though.

I am sure I missed something, and I didn't have film to break down the QBs as for theirs vs. others' mistakes.

The OL looks bigger.

[ponyguts]

I think the scrimmage went well for both the o and d. The first half of the scrimmage was all 1s vs 1s and 2s vs 2s. The offense scored a few times including 3 or 4 touchdowns and a few field goals. Munlin dominated the D everytime he got the ball. Passing the ball did seem a little off at times but will hopefully get better as time passes. No big stand outs on the D. Just pretty solid all round play. It also looked as if Bennett was calling all the D which is a change from Gush making the calls last year. Kicking game looked pretty good from what i saw. Mentzel seemed to be punting the ball very well and GoRedGoBlue said "McMurtry is erratic but made most of them" which seems to be a contradictory statement. From what I saw he made most of his kicks. Hopefully the O can pick up the slack in the passing game and be better next Saturday.

[dandyfan]

Foy Munlin is good. A work horse type runner. Big and strong.
Massey was horrible.
Cedric was noticably hurt from the start. Looked like an ankle.

[GoRedGoBlue]

I think the scrimmage went well for both the o and d. The first half of the scrimmage was all 1s vs 1s and 2s vs 2s. The offense scored a few times including 3 or 4 touchdowns and a few field goals. Munlin dominated the D everytime he got the ball. Passing the ball did seem a little off at times but will hopefully get better as time passes. No big stand outs on the D. Just pretty solid all round play. It also looked as if Bennett was calling all the D which is a change from Gush making the calls last year. Kicking game looked pretty good from what i saw. Mentzel seemed to be punting the ball very well and GoRedGoBlue said "McMurtry is erratic but made most of them" which seems to be a contradictory statement. From what I saw he made most of his kicks. Hopefully the O can pick up the slack in the passing game and be better next Saturday.

Erratic: The ball went through the uprights, but sometimes low line drives, sometimes sideways spirals, sometimes no spin knuckleballs, etc. It wasn't pretty. Wolcott was blocked several times.

Mentzel punted very good it appears, Meeks has bad form, kicking low and his leg not rising very high. I don't think he is the next Danny White, but then again, he may not have practiced much since he has been working on his passing game.

To MEEKS credit, his THROWING motion was MUCH improved over last year and actually had some zip.

[LA_Mustang]

I thought these players stood out.

Offense:
Phillips and Eckert: I thought they looked pretty good. They missed on a lot of the deep balls but I thought the receivers were the problem. Eckert has a nice arm but Phillips has the whole package. We will be much better at QB this year.
Foy Munlin: He is going to be a very good RB for us this year. He was the best offensive player on the field.
Cedric Vinson: Although I’m still worried about the WRs, Vison was a pleasant surprise. He made two big catches, one for a long TD. Pellerin and Rushbrook didn’t play.

Defense:
Melvin Williams: He was getting to the QBs often.
Alvin Nnabuife: He was making plays when he was out there. Had a pick.
Justin Rogers: He has a nose for the ball and he will hit.
Cory Muse: Let me tell ya, this kid will be a player. A star in the making.

[gostangs]

General thoughts -

Both the offensive and defensive line looked significantly bigger

Defense on the ball quickly, and several times had an actual pass rush (the question is whether it just looks like that because we are playing our guys - but it didn't feel that way).

running game looked great when Munlin was in there, good when Moss ran and so so with Massey - maybe Massey had the number two line - not sure.

QB was O.K., but sometimes disappointing to me - Phillips still looked like our best bet was him running - might just be timing.

LB's MUCH faster - Muse will be fun to watch.

special teams looked they needed the most work - yes I know - thats shocking.

Clearly big improvement in size and HUGE improvement in team speed from last year. Too bad it will probably be a four games before we can tell based on our less then bright schedule.

[SMUguy]

.... Munlin looks to be starting, as do Lowery and Chase at recievers. Not going to try and spell his name, but the corner from Air Force was playing with the first string as well.

Ah yes, the transfers. I've been told that Foy Munlin is a monster in practice every day.

The Air Force guy you mention is Charles Akinyemi. I haven't been to practice yet, but I'm told he hits like a player twice his size. Sort of a middle linebacker shoved into a cornerback's body. He should be fun to watch.

[SMUguy]

Cedric Vinson: Although I’m still worried about the WRs, Vison was a pleasant surprise. He made two big catches, one for a long TD. Pellerin and Rushbrook didn’t play.

I'm glad you mentioned Vinson. I remember being really impressed with him last spring, and when I talked him up to some friends, they said I was nuts. Here's hoping he makes me look bright (!) by getting into the rotation and showing something.

Defense:
Melvin Williams: He was getting to the QBs often.
Alvin Nnabuife: He was making plays when he was out there. Had a pick.
Justin Rogers: He has a nose for the ball and he will hit.
Cory Muse: Let me tell ya, this kid will be a player. A star in the making.

Glad to hear Williams and Rogers are doing well, and I certainly like all the optimism about Muse. But to me, the key here is Nnabuife - he's the anchor for the back side of the defense.

[SMUguy]

Did anyone get injured/banged up in Thursday's scrimmage?