Spring Game, Defense Wins

Tonight was the spring game at the Doyt.  Of course, we were there.  First of all, it seemed to me to be the largest crowd for a spring game that I can remember.  I would say that the Friday night idea seems to be a winner.  Often, a Saturday afternoon in the Spring, people are focusing on yard work and getting outdoors.  So the Friday night was good for that.

Was VERY windy.  And cold.  But, it was good to see some football before we hit the long summer break.

I listened to Coach Clawson's presser.  He made two points I thought were interesting...first, that we are young and showed our youth at times.  And, that we are much better defensively than we were a year ago.

That's an interesting observation.  Obviously, we lost lots of guys from last year's defense, and for us to be better with these young guys then we were with the guys from last year says something....probably most about the guys from last year.  Coach made the point that we are playing much faster on defense.

He also said that with a scrimmage, every good play is a bad play.  And the defense clearly dominated the results out there.  Notwithstanding a 64-62 score in the Stableford system, the defense clearly had the better of the play.

Consider this:

• Yards per play:  3.9
• Yards per rush (sack adjusted):  3.7
• Pass Completion %:  47.7%
• Interceptions:  3
• Sacks:  8
• (Note, we threw 65 passes, and 11 "negative plays" is about 17%, or double what it normally is).
• 3rd down conversion:  9 of 30

I don't know what we expected, with the offensive skill loses.  I'll just say this.  It sure didn't look like they were ahead of where we would expect.

Individually, of course, everyone wants to know how the QBs looked.  All 4 of them played, and none of them put up especially good numbers.  Schilz got about half of the passing attempts, but they were all in the 50% completion range.  I did see them make some nice passes as well, and there were some drops, but I would say they looked like QBs who have no real playing experience.

As for receivers, there were a lot of unfamiliar names.  Kamer Jorden, a JUCO transfer we have discussed before, was 10-87.  Shaun Joplin had 4 catches.  Of the 31 catches, only 6 were to receivers who had any serious time in the past, which is pretty amazing.

Finally, we missed two sub-40 FGs and an extra point.

We're going to be very young.  If we are going to compete, we will need a much stronger defense and running game to take the pressure off our young QBs and offense.  Or at least, that's how it looks now.

We leave the Doyt to the wind.  We await Marshall.