Defense Steps Up in Hokies' 2nd Spring Scrimmage
by furrer4heisman on Apr 17, 2010 6:28 PM EDT
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PrintAfter getting torched through the air in the first scrimmage last week, the Tech defense struck back Saturday in its second scrimmage of the spring and its final one before next week's spring game. The front seven stifled the ground game and overall the defense had six sacks and three interceptions.
The Hokies were without the services of running backs Ryan Williams and David Wilson. Williams was held out of the scrimmage and Wilson was with the track team at the ACC championships. Darren Evans received most of the carries and was held to 16 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries. His touchdown came close to the goalline against the No. 1 defense.
Thanks to @RaleighHokie, @vthokiefans, @SeanBielawski and @hokie8807 for providing outstanding updates from the scrimmage on Twitter.
According to those Twitter reports, the offensive line struggled, particularly with false starts. According to @SeanBielawski, there was a four-play sequence in which the O-line went false start, false start, bad shotgun snap, sack. What wasn't reported was whether or not that was the first-team line. If it was the first team line, then the consistency issues that dogged the O-line the last two seasons are still around. However, I wouldn't be shocked if that came from the second-team since it has been decimated by injuries this spring.
It was also a bad day for the kickers and punters, who dealt with a strong wind. The scrimmage saw missed field goals, bad snaps and a blocked punt by Cris Hill that was recovered for a touchdown by Davon Morgan. Two other secondary players also had good games. Eddie Whitley had an interception and according to @vthokiefans had another impressive break-up on a Tyrod Taylor pass intended for Jarrett Boykin.
Jayron Hosley led all players with six sacks tackles. According to @RaleighHokie, it looked like he was sick of sitting out with a groin injury.
The bright spot on offense was Taylor, who was 6-for-10 for 134 yards and a touchdown. He was the lone quarterback in a yellow, no-contact jersey and completed a couple of long passes to Danny Coale. The touchdown was an 18-yard strike to Boykin against the No. 2 defense.
The Hokies begin their last week of spring practice next week, culminating with the spring game on Saturday. Was anyone else at this week's scrimmage? What did you see?
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I wasn’t there, but here’s a complete run down of every play: http://hamptonroads.com.nyud.net/2010/04/spring-football-vol-22-second-scrimmage-breakdown-edition
It doesn’t contain that 4 play sequence, however. According to the above link, there was a sequence (with the 1st-team O-line, unfortunately) that had 2 false start penalties and then a bad snap, but the following play was not a sack (it was an 11-yard pass completion). There was a sack several plays later in the series (and another bad snap), but there were some other plays mixed in there as well.
And it says Hosley had 6 tackles, not 6 sacks (which would have been amazing).
More analysis here: http://hamptonroads.com.nyud.net/2010/04/spring-football-vol-23-second-scrimmage-reaction-edition
whoops!
fixed
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by furrer4heisman on Apr 18, 2010 2:31 PM EDT up reply actions
My observations
I didn’t attend the scrimmage last week, so this is my first look at the 2010 hokies.
The good:
-Tyrod and receivers were all on same page and looked solid. The deep pass to Coale was sweet. There were 2 or 3 instances where he completed nice passes or threw a good option toss but since some defender’s pinky touched his sleeve he was marked down right before the throw.
-I was impressed with the secondary today. Good coverage and good tackling. Hosely played hard and had a good punt return too.
-This was the first time I saw Logan Thomas. Big dude. Great arm, he didn’t look too uncomfortable out there, and he had several good, hard runs. Only 1 or 2 of his throws were poor. Everything lese was just out of reach or good D. Davis dropped a beautiful throw of his down the middle for 20 yards.
-Ju-Ju had some good throws too, but some really poor throws as well. To me, it’s still a really tough call on who is No. 2 QB.
The bad:
-O line makes me nervous. I think the false starts were mostly fisrt string actually. I know Dechristopher had one and maybe Brooks. It appeared to me that most were caused by the defense flinching, not snap counts. Neither string could run-block at all today. They pass blocked ok, but then again we do have mobile QB’s. Any other year I would credit the defense on this penetration, but the front 7 is so inexperienced this year. I’m not too worried about the bad snaps at this time of year, we’ll fix those.
-Kicking game was embarassing. Now there was some wind, but I would have felt fine if those kicks were short only by 5 yards, not 15 yards and wide right like we saw. We did see a couple good punts later.
Overall…
Saw a lot of good things on both sides of the ball, just not special teams. I wish I had observed the linebackers more, but after viewing that scrimmage my confidence in the Defense increased a bunch, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
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