Football Scrimmage...other news

So, Spring practice continues on its merry way down at BG.  There was a scrimmage recently, and Coach Jinks talked about it afterward.

He says we have a long way to go, which is what you normally hear.  It sounded overall like the defense had the better of the scrimmage, which isn't the way you'd like to hear that come out.  He said there were protection issues and that BG didn't give up many negative running plays but also no explosive plays.  In my view, the offensive line is still a big question mark going into the year and as much as the skill positions should be better, you have a ceiling if the line play isn't effective and those both sound like line issues to me.

He said the defense didn't have a ton of mis-alignments, to Coach Pelini's credit.  They didn't give up explosive offensive or defensive plays.

If you were on twitter while the scrimmage was going on, you'd notice that the official feed was in full OMG mode with Brandon Perce, who was apparently laying some serious hits on the defensive side.  Perce was a highly-honored JUCO player in Minnesota who Coach says "has a chip on his shoulder," which is often a good way to go at LB.

Coach did put out a warning that Perce has not played a lot of football and is a blank slate to the coaching staff.  Also, I didn't see the scrimmage so I don't know if he was going against the 1s or 2s.  Not to dampen enthusiasm, just to remind people to let the young man develop and to manage expectations as he adjusts.  Sounds like he's a football player in his heart.