Happy back-at-it Monday Cougs, and here’s hoping you enjoyed another sunny weekend around the great NW.
Our own Victory Bell snapped the above photo of the new Martin Stadium renovation before the scrimmage on Saturday. According to Victory, the pics that we’ve all seen, hey, while they are nice and all that? They don’t do the thing justice. Up close and personal it is apparently MASSIVE, and a lot of Cougs making the trek to Pullman for the home opener vs. EWU will be awfully surprised at what they see.
This is a good shot floating around on Facebook of what things look like off of Stadium Way, and you can clearly see how times, they-are-a-changin’:
Anyway, so the Cougs held the first big scrimmage of fall camp on Saturday (have you heard??), and it sounds like things went pretty well for the passing offense. Read on for some impressions from Victory Bell, plus the usual round-up of morning links…
First, some rambling notes from Victory Bell’s iPhone, taken during the action, in dot-dot-dot style….
Connor Halliday started under center, Marcus Mason taking first unit RB reps….Casey Locker and Tyree Toomer started at safety….new kicker Michael Bowlin smacked 45 harder right down middle with 10 yards to spare…..Gabe Marks makes catch on a ball no higher than a Zack Williams snap, from Halliday, in triple coverage!….Halliday drops beautiful ball on Post Route to Isiah Myers for TD…..Oh, and Chester Sua hits HARD.
Meanwhile, where is Tuel?? Oh there he is…..and he immediately finds Bobby Ratliff from 20+ out on a out route for TD, secondary looked lost…..Haven’t seen Logan Mayes and Travis Long on the field at same time yet?…..Rickey Galvin goes in motion from slot, Tuel snaps and literally throws the ball down in to Galvin’s hands for 4 yards, no handoff…..Clearly can tell a similar play to what Oregon runs with their slot guy…..Defense shows blitz a lot…..Darryl Monroe looks thinner than last spring game (2011)……
Next, Tuel hits Marquess Wilson from 35 out on post pattern for TD and (unfortunately) Damante Horton looks lost…..Andrew Furney misses FG to the left from about 35 yards…..I see a lot of unknown names running with second unit defense?…..
Moving on, Gabe Marks 80+ yard catch streaking down north sideline and Hallday hits him in perfect stride for score….but defense still doesn’t look so good (uh-oh?)…..Halliday scrambles to his left and hits Theron West who goes to sideline then cuts up field to gain 30 yards…..Remember what I said about the defense looking like poop??…..Halliday sails a corner fade route wide from 10 yard line. Intended for Ratliff, I think?…..Halliday then throws to Marquess W in end zone but Deon Ford the newbie in the secondary breaks it up…..Halliday then tosses perfect corner fade, Marquess looks up at last second and snags TD, cornerback draws hankie in the process, touchdown Cougs!
Finally, Bowlin has 35 yard FG (or was it a super-long PAT?) from left hash blocked. Gino Simone is the holder today, not sure of it was his fault or what…..Gilbertson in at QB. Sails pass wide intended for Max Hersey, but solid coverage by Horton…..Gilby then throws picture perfect 10 yard out to Mansell Simmons, who, by the way, is a freak of nature!…..Gilby hits Mansell Simmons again with another beautiful ball on the post for 20+ yards…..Blair Bomber with his second dropped ball on a great throw from Gilby…..TD catch! Max Hersey from Gilby…..And still absolutely no ground game whatsoever. Against this defense?? Yikes!…..And the DL has barely been the backfield today, again, not a good thing.
And here are some notes from “Ambush184”, who posted these comments on Saturday night (Thanks Ambush!):
Great day for golf and football. Golf was quite nice, football was just as good.
To start with, if I were choosing a starting QB based on today, Halliday would get the nod. Tuel looked “off”. He wasn’t sharp to start with. The offense looked much better than the defense to start with, but the D came on later in the scrimmage. Allison is the real deal. He’s fast and has a nose for the ball. He made several plays and nearly had a pick. The D line stiffened up too. Mayes looked good overall, especially when he put his hand down on the end. Travis long was just Travis Long, doing what he does best.
On offense, God help everyone’s secondary. Wilson, Marks, RG5 just to name a few all looked good. Marks especially, for a Frosh he’s amazing. REALLY fast. Runs good routes. I really liked Galvin in the slot. He showed some moves, and blocked pretty well when called on. Several long completions and a bunch of short-to-medium routes. The running game needs some work, but even at that they showed some moves. Theron West looked okay.
I think it was Conncepcion who was hitting some crazy long punts?…with hang time. He out-kicked the coverage a couple of times, again with hang time. And Furney has some competition in Michael Bowlin. Bowlin hit several long FG’s, one at least 50 yds.
Overall there are some really positive signs. It was a fun afternoon.
I talked with Keith Lincoln for a few minutes before everything started. He says he’ll be happy with 4 wins. Not sure where he sees that. When I told him I thought 5-6 was do-able, and 7 is a possibility, he looked at me as if I were nuts. Hope he’s the one who’s nuts.
Thanks again to Ambush and Victory Bell for their recaps!
In links, Cougfan’s Joe Doyle weighs in with his takes here. As you can probably predict, the story of the day is the offense, with eight TD’s on the afternoon. Doyle has a great rundown of the the guys running with the starters, if you can read much into it this early? And he has a good rundown of the injuries, which still seem to be piling up a bit. Cougfan also has a free photo gallery from Saturday, which you can see here.
Christian Caple kills it with his notebook from the scrimmage. Caple runs it all down for you, including stats from Saturday as well as four videos from the day that was.
Finally, Howie Stalwick writes about the QB play, among other tidbits from Saturday.
That’s it for this morning. Enjoy your Monday, and as always, GO COUGS!
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