Spring Game Impressions
What did you guys like about the game and what did you guys not like as far as the performance of our players? I liked Tate's performance, I thought he played really well. Some things I was a little worried about was the D-Line. Overall it was a good "game". We still have a lot of work to do but overall I think we played good. What do you guys think?
I'm not feeling very good about our defense.
Where was Donovan Warren? I saw other injured players around, but I didn't see him at all.
I hope to god that Carlos Brown can stay healthy this year.
I'm impressed by Forcier, definitely like ability much better than threet or sheridan, but he really needs to protect the ball. Also, he seems to want to run a lot. Couple times there were receivers open downfield and he decided to run instead. He's going to get killed if he keeps doing that.
Warren was in a cast sitting in a chair according to the radio guys. He was on the sideline though. And for the D-Line, both Martin and Van Bergen didn't play, so that is two starters missing.
Mouton would be the fourth starter not playing.
I got there a bit late, and just as I sit down I see a QB absolutely own Stevie Brown. He jukes him out of his shoes and takes off for a 30yd gain right up the gut. I was like wow this Forcier kid has some moves, then I noticed the number. Stevie Brown had gotten owned by the Coner. So arguably the best athlete on our team got owned by 6-5 slow gumpy white guy, dear god can someone get Stevie a brain transplant or something???
Aug '95
Actually what froze Stevie Brown on that play was a pump fake towards the outside reciever who was standing there like he was running a bubble screen. Stevie went to cover the pass and Coner took off. It wasn't a great play by any means for Stevie, but he was probably figuring that Cone would not run since he is slow so he covered the more likely option in his mind.
You used to see that stuff in the NFL too when Vick was playing, he would throw a pump fake 5 yards past the line of scrimmage and NFL linebackers would jump to block the pass.
I don't blame Stevie on that one, and if it was someone other than him people would probably just let it go.
not a bad move on The Coner's part.
That's exactly what I saw on that play as well. It was actually a very good read by Cone.
I heard this from a friends mom who is a nurse at uofm hospital. Warren has a broken ankle. I don't know how bad it is but i am sure he will be back by summer.
Thats like a HIPPA violation, I'm telling.
April 11th, 2009 at 10:47 PM ^
...but it's "HIPAA."
April 12th, 2009 at 10:15 AM ^
Health Information & Patient Privacy Act, but not to quibble...
written by the Potamus group
April 12th, 2009 at 10:19 AM ^
I've never heard of that. I have heard of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act though...
April 12th, 2009 at 10:28 AM ^
I'm sticking with it ;)
April 12th, 2009 at 12:57 PM ^
I appreciate you coming to my defense, but we are wrong on this one, it is HIPAA.
I think the #1 offense went against the #2 defense all day. That explains why the D may have looked bad.
Plus they couldn't hit the QB's so that probably makes you play slower.
I just think the white team had some advantages that explain what may be perceived as a poor defensive performance.
there was still some bad tackling and big plays given up, but it is spring so hopefully they get that stuff squared away.
I was more worried about the #2 offense against the #1 defense. After all that I had heard about Cone over the years, I was a bit disheartened to see him running for 40 yards or throwing touchdowns against our starting defense.
donovan had surgery on his foot i think. he was spotted in a cast on the sideline
I think as far as the offense tate moved the ball consistently and was very accurate but the most impressive thing I saw was tate ability to scramble & improvise . The defense had alot of key guys out D Warren J mouton M Martin & R Vanbergen plus they didn't show there hand so it was difficult to see how good the defense was playing against the 2nd team offense, by the way carlos brown looked fast !!!!!
- T-Force is for real. Keep him healthy because no one else is. We are a legit contender with him. Accurate, quick release, elusive. 4 scenic TD's. Does not look like a Freshman (High School Senior, actually).
- I heard Kevin Newsome went 3-15 in the PSU spring game.
- The O line gets the Most Improved award. Lean and mean - both Speed and Push. This will be the biggest difference this year.
- Our backs looked great. I especially liked some of the 2 back gap-blocking look as a change of pace to the zone read option. I hope we run it some this year.
- Roundtree, Matthews, Stonum - looked solid.
- Already you can see that with more talent and experience, the playbook is more open and diverse. We'll be hard to defend when all cylindars are hitting.
- The D . . . well the D is at a big disdvantage at an event like this. Several stars missing, the 2's had to play the O's 1's, and they can't really go all out on the O for fear of injury. The results were inconclusive, though they can at least stop the Coner (except for the Coner-to-Stoner TD). Bonus: As the O gets better, the D gets better for free. Could we have had more 3 and outs last year?
- Fantastic event. Way to represent - fans, band, cheerleaders, alumni players. I can easily see this become a 92,000+ event.
I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm positive that PSU hasn't had their spring game yet.
i thought i had heard something though about newsome having some terrible completion percentage. maybe at a scrimmage or something?
Maybe it was a spring scrimmage.
Here's to 2-15 for the actual Spring Game!
Yes it was a scrimmage.
Tate looked better than I expected [the Coner looked absolutely awful, Kennedy looked better], Vince Smith and Carlos Brown showed some nice speed, and I was very impressed with the crowd turnout. More than Georgia, it looks like, and they're on ESPN. Also, Ricardo Miller shot me a wink and a "Go Blue" so I'm happy.
good: tate looked accurate passing and agile running. jimmy potempa?
bad: stevie brown got juked out of his pants by the coner on that 50 yard run
Maybe I'm just trying to be optimistic, but I really think Brown was being hesitant due to the don't-hit-the-quarterback rule.
Don't-hit-the-quarterback rule. It has to be that . . . um, doesn't it? Please, please, oh please?
Brown would of went at Cone so much faster if he were to be able to hit.
i more or less agree that that's why 1st team offense rolled up and down the field. since they don't want to injure anyone, but brown still looked silly when the coner juked him for a 50 yarder
Unfortunately I had to leave because my father was complaining of an ear ache, but from the 5 or 6 possessions I saw with Forcier:
He is the real deal, but (obviously) young. Gets nervous in the pocket, sometimes makes the right move and breaks for 8+ yards, other times he would have gotten hit for a 5+ yard loss. Needs to learn when to throw it away quickly, but at his current level, he has demonstrated everything you could ask for.
Night and day between him and Threet, but at times you will see some mistakes. He will be our starter against Western this Fall.
Not afraid to go to the middle of the field, but don't expect any Henne-esque Hail Mary's reigning down anytime soon. But that will come.
I feel quite a bit better about the offense after today. I really wasn't concentrating on the defense too much (I think Coach Rod really wanted to show off the O).
Which safety played with the first team besides Brown?
Mike Williams and Troy Woolfolk were at safety.
don't mean to underanalyze or anything but hopefully some of you guys went to the spring game and actually had fun instead of freaking out about every last detail. Weather was nice, surprisingly big crowd, players looked like they were generally enjoying themselves, even the coner looked decent, cheerleaders looked gorgeous, band sounded good and the crowd was for sure having fun.
Chill out a little bit yo, we still have months till the season starts.
I was very impressed with Forcier. The D wasn't very good, and he did have that fumble/safety, and the throw right into a LB, but his performance was probably the best you can expect for a true freshman playing in front of the biggest crowd he's seen while playing.
Not saying he's going to light it up all season long, but this guy is far FAR better than Threet was at this time last year and probably better than Threet would've been this Spring as well.
Not only that but the running game/offensive line looked good.
As for the defense...I will give them a pass on this one. They were missing 4 starters and playing pretty vanilla the whole time. Steve brown getting juked out of his jock by CONER was absolutely hilarious and probably foreshadowing given what we've seen Brown do the last two seasons.
with much of what has been said. First of all, the fan base should be proud of themselves for coming out in great numbers (what are peoples estimates?) and making some noise when they came on the field and in welcoming back the likes of woodley, howard and hart.
i have to imagine the few dozen recruits who were there absolutely loved what they saw today.
I think it is hard to assess to much as both sides played with an abbreviated playbook and as mentioned, the #1 O vs. #2 D, yada yada, some d-starters that didn't play.
I saw what I needed and wanted: Tate Forcier puts the ball on a dime on almost every throw.
I can't tell if Tate is just that good, or the defense really sucks, but I was impressed with pretty much all of his throws. Almost every one was right on the money and even his running was good. I wish they would let him keep running so we could see if he could break away to the endzone. That fumble in the endzone wasn't a good thing, but I would have to say the rest of what he did overshadowed it.
Carlos Brown was the top preforming back today and I didn't expect him too be, so good for him. His long run for a touchdown was really impressive.
The special teams portion in the beginning was TERRIBLE. My god, they better work on that. I would have to say the top priorities should be special teams and defense. I think Tate is doing a great job so far.
From the way he threw the ball (i.e. placement and velocity) it's pretty safe to land on the side that Tate is that good. It's silly to look at the ultimate result of the plays in a game like this, but it's perfectly legitimate to look at the little details within plays. Tate placed the ball very well, especially on the short passes which is something that was lacking all last year.
There were some badly missed kicks. There were also a few botched snaps.
completely forgot about that. Let's hope Gibbons is a competent kicker.
Bryan Wright is not very good.
Impressive: Tate, Carlos Brown, Vincent Smith, Roundtree, Mathews'catch in the endzone, and Ron Bellamy.
I was hoping to see Koger get some balls thrown his way, so that was disappointing. It would be nice to see our tight ends more involved in the passing game. Our defense looked pretty bad but this event really isn't set up to showcase all of their talents. It was definitely a cool event though.
Ron Bellamy?
He played in the alumni flag football game. Had a nice run after catch and played some quarterback. He did throw an interception that "was taken back for a touchdown" (40 yd. line), but I liked the effort.
oh, right.
He played in the flag game, and showed that he's still got some skills (however, he was running past 40-50 year old guys).
We should see if he has any eligibility left in him.
RichRod did not want to show anything new. Did not he go to Oklahomha to see how they incorporate their tight ends into the offense, probably did not want to show his hand.
Forcier showed the arm strength and accuracy to throw the ball downfield over the middle that is for sure.
Well I believe we played well. Forcier has a very good arm and no one said anything about roundtrees two touchdown catches including the bomb near the end of the game. One player I feel sucked was big will, he didn't do anything against the second team offensive love that was less than spectacular.
Am I the only one who absolutely hates that punt formation with like five guys spread out in front and three in the middle that allows a big rush to come though? One of the punts got blocked easily today and a few more were close. I much prefer the traditional punt formation to that thing.
Kickers leave a lot to desire. The first kicker could barely kick the ball 35 yards. Wright hit a nice 45 yarder, but was too inconsistent. I hope Gibbons is all he's cracked up to be otherwise it's going to be like the Philip Brabb years all over again (shudder at the thought!). Why can I never feel comfortable about our kicking situation?
Tate looked very good throwing and running the ball. Decision making (i.e. throwing the ball away) will come in time. I'm sure it's his natural instinct to do too much with the ball because he could probably get away with it in high school. The one that stuck out to me was when they started at the one yard line and he took a safety (well, they called it a safety because of the tag rule but I think he actually fumbled it). But his throws were nice and accurate, his scrambling looks good, big improvement and I'm excited to see what he can do in the fall.
Did Terrence Robinson play today? If so how'd he look?