Reading Between the Lines: Saturday Scrimmage

UNCOVERED: Aaron Boyd’s Receiving Tutorial

On Saturday the football Wildcats (you may now skip the rest of this article) held their final closed scrimmage before the Blue-White game this Saturday, April 23rd and it looks to be a very even matchup compared to 2007 (offense scored on 5 straight possessions) and 2008 (offense didn’t score for 7 straight) as both sides are working to build their identity. Fans will get a chance to see what Rick Minter’s Nuclear Defense looks like, and to see if Morgan Newton is capable of leading this offense as the clear starter from Day One. This article is about the scrimmage that just happened though, so here’s your recap from this weekend.

First Team:
The difference in the first team battles this week is that the defense is no longer taking people by surprise, and the offense showed up and managed to score on the first drive. Despite wind gusts in the 20’s, Newton managed to find some success through the air, throwing three TD’s including an early connection on a 21-yard TD pass to Matt Roark, who churned out tough yardage after the catch to fall into the end zone. The defense decided they were going to play at that point and stonewalled the offense until the last few possessions when they allowed the Matt Roark to feel the soft endzone grass again after pulling in a 42-yard catch down the middle. The lone turnover of the day came in the form of a Ridge Wilson interception from the 10-yard line, but Coach Phillips noted that big plays were given up because of a lack of focus, not a lack of effort or speed.
“Defensively, we gave up a couple of big plays but I really like the way those guys are flying around,” Phillips said, “They’re not always flying around where they’re supposed to be, but when they do screw up they are running to the football violently. I like that. The thing we have to do is have everybody on the same page — staying in gaps, when we get out of gaps we gave up some big plays. Same thing on the back end, guys are not reading their keys and a couple of receivers got behind them.”

Second Team:
The second team offense, after scoring three straight TD’s last week was absolutely locked down by the defense this week, blanking the second team on the first six possessions. Miles Simpson, the newly reassigned LB/S seemed to be fitting in well to his new place, has a sack and a tackle for loss that helped kill long drives, as well as a negative yardage tackle from end Justin Henderson on third-and-one. One player on offense who has been making waves is TE Gabe Corell, who hauled in a TD pass on a red zone situation set up by Phillips. It is the second consecutive endzone visit Correll has made in the last two scrimmages and is making his best effort to break into the playing rotation this fall.

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