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Spring Game wrap-up

BWahlberg

Well-known member
DONOR
I'd say about 800-1000 fans braved the less than favorable conditions to catch this evening's scrimmage which lasted about 90 minutes total. It felt like a late fall kind of day for sure. I tweeted quite a few of the individual plays so check my twitter account for those, here's some general impressions:

1. Ryan Burke had two of the more impressive plays on offense. Burke had two catches but both were huge. One was on a 3rd and 5 where SSH read the blitz and hit Burke on a quick inside slant. It was a high thrown ball but Ryan made an out-stretched grab to get the 1st down. The other play was a beauty of a TD pass thrown by Ryan Gustafson through double coverage, Burke leaps over the defender and makes a great TD grab. I noticed on another play as well where SSH threw the ball away he missed seeing a wide open Burke running into the endzone about 30 yards down field.

2. Tucker Schye and Kendrick Van Ackeren were on fire. I believe between the two they had a forced a fumble and I know Schye recovered one. Van Ack's best play might've been where he blew up a screen pass to Jordan Canada. Canada looked like he had space but Kendrick shot through the two OL upfield blockers and hit Canada right in the mid-section, sending him up in the air and landing down on the ground for just a few yard gain. Schye was rushing into running lanes and had a few good stops, this guy is the real deal.

3. IMO I think Harrison Greenberg has moved slightly ahead of Ben Worst for the #1 fieldgoal spot. Greenberg had 1 miss and that was a bobbled snap. From there he made everything and his last kick from 40 out was one of the best looking kicks from any kicker of the evening. Lider his the uprights once, Worst twice. Both though had some good kicks too later on.

4. The O-line was up and down, opened up some good running lanes but we saw a lot of the same issues that we saw last year. Mostly that runs outside of the tackles went for little to no gain, two of the three lost fumbles came on outside runs where the ball carriers were hit by multiple tacklers and lost the ball. There was a TFL for a safety on a run play. There was a touch-sack for a safety, and two other touch sacks given up.

5. John Nguyen.... John Nguyen.... great at times, not great at other times. With the RBs down to just 2 guys as best I could tell (Favors, Counts, & Van didn't play), he had a ton of touches. Nguyen I bet finished with 60-80 yards or so, including a scrimmage ending 40 yard TD dash. At times you saw good power from him where he pushed guys back and some good cuts and moves. But then there's two lost fumbles. Bad stuff.

6. Good game for the D-line, two touch sacks for Wags, one for Johnson, a forced fumble for Peevey plus another that was called off by the refs. Kidder was back out there, Takai batted down a JJ pass. The backups did get worn down as the game went on though.

Some younger/newer guys that made some plays:

#2 Ryan McKinley picked a pass, SSH tried to go to the sideline on a broken play and McKinley was in the right position and picked it.

#25 Shane Moody had a TFL on a quick throw to a wide receiver, also was credited for a few pass breakups.

#42 Nate Bradley forced a late fumble which was recovered by #57 Keenan Watt

#39 Jake Dallaserra had some nicely defended passes and even though it was a penalty for a late hit (I think he was called for it) I liked the aggressiveness at safety, had some hard hits.

#20 Herbert Gamboa was in on some tackles and having a good day, it would've been a great day for him if he would've caught a sure-fire pick six late in the scrum.

---------------------

Overall it was a very interesting scrimmage to watch there were some good stuff and some good hope for the team moving forward. Depth is really nicely developing here and I think that this team is going to come out of the spring in great shape moving forward. One thing that really impresses me is the defense and how it's really swarming well to the ball. There were not a lot of badly missed tackles and only just a few big gains.

One more scrimmage, this Thursday, not sure the time yet. Looking forward to seeing this team finish strong.
 
Nguyen was 16-107.

Soccer was cancelled in GF today today, after trying to play morning games.

DEFENSIVE STATS: TACKLE LEADERS: Nate Bradley: 4; Trent McKinney: 4; Kendrick Van Ackern: 4 Zack Wagenmann: 4; Nate Harris 3; Tyrone Holmes: 3; Connor Lebsock: 3; Zach Peevey: 3.
 
I kept telling Brint not to stare directly at the kickers as to not scare them, but he kept watching them kick and they kept missing. Lider def has the best leg. Worst will not be kicking come fall.

Gus's TD pass was a fairly ill-advised pass, but a great catch by Burke who had another outstanding grab during the scrim as well.

Schye is going to be a great player at some point.

Wags is going to disrupt a lot of QBs passing this year.

John Nguyen.. oi.. great, but not great. Gotta hang onto the ball, son!

Johnson had one pass that shoulda been a pick six from Gamboa.

Defense dominated the scrim up and down. Canada is going to be a good back this year. Keep in mind, it's still spring and we probably saw about 10% of the playbook tonight. Everyone's a beast and everyone sucks. Good hangin' out with bwahlberg and NativeGriz tonight.
 
It was nice hanging with some people with good Griz FB knowledge. I don't know all the individual players as well. Thanks again for the warm up BW.
McKinney played well considering he just switched from QB.
I really like what I see in our future with Makena Simis. The kid has an arm.
SSH, made some good decisions to run with the ball when there was no place to throw.
Like Titlest stated, the throw by Gus was ill advised, but it looked like an NFL pass. It was a beauty and my favorite play of the scrimmage. My second favorite was the catch by Burke from SSH-it was MM type catch-really fun to watch.
John Nguyen, for a small guy has a lot of power and quick's. Please hold on to the ball.
JJ did not have his best game-not much was there for him today except on the first series he made a nice connection for about 20 yards to Jamaal Jones(great move to get open) and a TD later in the scrum. JJ had a lot of trouble handling the snap. He's still our man, but not dialed in last night. Obviously part of that is weather, but also because of 4 QBs, they were trying to give every kid a chance, so JJ did not have much time to develop his rhythm.
IMO, by design, there were not many opportunities for rhythm to be established in the entire scrimmage. As BW stated, it was interesting. Go Griz.
 
Had an interesting experience at the scrum. I brought my wife, 2 and a half year old daughter, and six month old son to Missoula yesterday and was looking forward to the little ones seeing their first action in WAGRIZ. Unfortunately, for the little ones the wind was very cold. I asked the gal at the gate if the upper skybox was open and she asked me if I was a Canyon Club member and I told her no, she proceeded to tell me it was not open to the General Public. So, I went up there anyway to see if we could get out of the wind, and low and behold when we went in the gal asked us if we were members or if we were just trying to get out of the weather. I told her we were just trying to get out of the weather and that we would not be indulging on their "gourmet hotdogs". She let us stay. I was very thankful that she had the courtesy to let us stay as otherwise we would have left right away. I got to watch a little bit of the game, got to continually point my daughter in the direction of Monte, and got to expose my little guy (not so little) to his first taste of the finest FCS football in the country. All-in-all I am glad we paid the cheap fare, and went up to the box without the gate lady's permission...and had 45 minutes of spring ball. Can't wait until fall.
 
LittleTexasGriz said:
CATS cancel Spring Game in Great Falls due to snow! W0W! Should not have expected any less!
In some respects, I wish the Griz would have moved their game to today. Because of cold/wind, I could not get my fair weather friends to attend last night.
 
NativeGriz said:
JJ did not have his best game-not much was there for him today except on the first series he made a nice connection for about 20 yards to Jamaal Jones(great move to get open) and a TD later in the scrum. JJ had a lot of trouble handling the snap. He's still our man, but not dialed in last night. Obviously part of that is weather, but also because of 4 QBs, they were trying to give every kid a chance, so JJ did not have much time to develop his rhythm.
IMO, by design, there were not many opportunities for rhythm to be established in the entire scrimmage. As BW stated, it was interesting. Go Griz.
The realization is starting to creep into my mind that we may have seen JJ's ceiling in the late 2011 Pflu offense. That set our expectations sky high. In this offense, he has been good, not great, and somewhat inconsistent. By the end of the NDSU game this fall, we should know where he belongs with all-time UM QBs.
 
kemajic said:
NativeGriz said:
JJ did not have his best game-not much was there for him today except on the first series he made a nice connection for about 20 yards to Jamaal Jones(great move to get open) and a TD later in the scrum. JJ had a lot of trouble handling the snap. He's still our man, but not dialed in last night. Obviously part of that is weather, but also because of 4 QBs, they were trying to give every kid a chance, so JJ did not have much time to develop his rhythm.
IMO, by design, there were not many opportunities for rhythm to be established in the entire scrimmage. As BW stated, it was interesting. Go Griz.
The realization is starting to creep into my mind that we may have seen JJ's ceiling in the late 2011 Pflu offense. That set our expectations sky high. In this offense, he has been good, not great, and somewhat inconsistent. By the end of the NDSU game this fall, we should know where he belongs with all-time UM QBs.

Honestly, its only scrimmage and he really didn't have anytime to get warmed up. its not like he was really into the game i bet. We shall see what happens come August.
 
kemajic said:
NativeGriz said:
JJ did not have his best game-not much was there for him today except on the first series he made a nice connection for about 20 yards to Jamaal Jones(great move to get open) and a TD later in the scrum. JJ had a lot of trouble handling the snap. He's still our man, but not dialed in last night. Obviously part of that is weather, but also because of 4 QBs, they were trying to give every kid a chance, so JJ did not have much time to develop his rhythm.
IMO, by design, there were not many opportunities for rhythm to be established in the entire scrimmage. As BW stated, it was interesting. Go Griz.
The realization is starting to creep into my mind that we may have seen JJ's ceiling in the late 2011 Pflu offense. That set our expectations sky high. In this offense, he has been good, not great, and somewhat inconsistent. By the end of the NDSU game this fall, we should know where he belongs with all-time UM QBs.

Great observation, JJ can be good in this offense but not great.

When a coach takes half a skill set away nobody can be great tied down like that. I just hope coach G forgets about it and let's him play.
 
I have a question for those in attendance at the scrimmage. Where was Marq Rogers? Seems like he is a receiver that we have high hopes for and no stats. What am I missing? Was he hurt? Did he play?
 
ALPHAGRIZ1 said:
kemajic said:
NativeGriz said:
JJ did not have his best game-not much was there for him today except on the first series he made a nice connection for about 20 yards to Jamaal Jones(great move to get open) and a TD later in the scrum. JJ had a lot of trouble handling the snap. He's still our man, but not dialed in last night. Obviously part of that is weather, but also because of 4 QBs, they were trying to give every kid a chance, so JJ did not have much time to develop his rhythm.
IMO, by design, there were not many opportunities for rhythm to be established in the entire scrimmage. As BW stated, it was interesting. Go Griz.
The realization is starting to creep into my mind that we may have seen JJ's ceiling in the late 2011 Pflu offense. That set our expectations sky high. In this offense, he has been good, not great, and somewhat inconsistent. By the end of the NDSU game this fall, we should know where he belongs with all-time UM QBs.

Great observation, JJ can be good in this offense but not great.

When a coach takes half a skill set away nobody can be great tied down like that. I just hope coach G forgets about it and let's him play.

Really? JJ says his best skill set is reading the d and improvising. He enjoys this style more than the shotgun spread. Obviously you don't know JJ.
 
Griz1 said:
I have a question for those in attendance at the scrimmage. Where was Marq Rogers? Seems like he is a receiver that we have high hopes for and no stats. What am I missing? Was he hurt? Did he play?

Played, was with the 1s quite a bit and the 2s. Just had no passes thrown his way. As I recall Henderson and Naccarato didn't have any catches either, Jones just 1. Just the way it goes sometimes.
 
getgrizzy said:
did henderson play?
who started on the offensive line?

Oline I believe went Schmaing, Hines (#65), Weyer, Deitrich, Poole.

2nd string... I think was LaRowe, Kalekini, Hines (#65), Todd, Rokich

Looking at guys that didn't suit up was Kelly #79 who would normally be a tackle on the 2nd team and Hines #66 who is normally the starting center, which then bumps Weyer to starting guard and Deitrich back to 2nd string.
 
Rokich was in sweats. #60 played with the 2s, I believe that was the transfer from Kalispell that came in as a TE but has been moved to OT - Jackson Thiebes 6'5" 240lbs.
 
Kalekini did not play. #60 made some mistakes but wow! A walk on TE moved to tackle last week. He's a good 30lbs light and he competed. What a great find!
 
GrizFBDad said:
Kalekini did not play. #60 made some mistakes but wow! A walk on TE moved to tackle last week. He's a good 30lbs light and he competed. What a great find!

I think he played at Lewis & Clark, or somewhere like that. Heard he has some potential.
 
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