2013 Spring Practice: First Open Scrimmage

This is an open thread for now, but Brian, Mike, and Andrew are at the game and this post will be updated once the scrimmage is over. If you're at the scrimmage, take advantage of our mobile redesign and leave any comments below.

The takes from Brian, Mike, and Andrew follow. Without the benefit of the film, these open scrimmages are hard to cover. My hope is three sets of eyes provide a good feel for what happened in Lane today.

Scrimmage #1 Notes by Brian Marcolini (marcolini11)

There are always a few things that stand out in a scrimmage that carry on into the regular season. For example, last spring Dadi Nicolas looked like a star on the third team. I mean he couldn’t be blocked. I thought that it was just because he was playing against a freshman tackle...but there just becomes a point in time where it is OBVIOUS that a guy is good, no matter who he’s lined up against. A couple people that added to their "Nicolas Stock":

• Kyshon Jarrett (punt returner): I was screaming at Frank the entire year (along with most of the Hokie population) to just put Jarrett back there all by himself. Take the bubble wrap off, if you will. In the limited amount of punts practiced, Kyshon could have taken two back for scores, had they not been blown dead. He could be the most dangerous punt returner since Eddie Royal.
• Trey Edmunds: Again, not a surprise. Everyone knows that Edmunds will be very good. Remember when Tech and Bama played in 2009, and Ryan Williams just looked like he belonged on the field with those Bama defenders? He was only a freshman, and we didn’t know how good he was going to be, but he still looked like he belonged on the same field. I think Edmunds will look that way this year.
• Brandon Facyson: He got beat once or twice today, but let’s just say I’m buying Facyson stock. He looks like he can be the next lockdown corner if his development continues. He will probably give up a big play this season and people will be down on him, but don’t be shocked if he becomes the nickel corner by the end of the year.

I’m writing a piece on the offensive line, so I won’t step on that, but let’s just say some people had good days (Shuman and Gibson in particular), others had bad days, and others had terrible days. We’ll break into that tomorrow.

Joshua Stanford was targeted a ton by Thomas, while getting first team reps. If I had to guess, Stanford will see the field a lot, with Coles and Knowles. Excited to see more of him on Saturday.

The d-line looked like their usual self. Derrick Hopkins was having his way with the second team guards, and Kris Harley (who should be in the Nicolas Stock list) did extremely well against the first team.

Didn’t watch a lot of Tariq Edwards, but it was really great to see him back there. If he can go full speed, the linebackers will be in great shape.

Despite what I said about Facyson, the defense will be at a big disadvantage until Exum can come back (who, by the way, looked like he was about to explode while standing on the sidelines). Facyson, Donaldven Manning and Donovan Riley all took turns lining up opposite Kyle Fuller and all had their ups and downs. Manning looked like he had the best day of the three in terms of not giving up big plays, but he didn’t make any plays either. We better hope one of those three grows up quickly, because I HATE relying exclusively on a true freshman corner arriving in the summer (Kendall Fuller).

Interesting note that Carlis Parker took some third team snaps at receiver, although he was in his yellow quarterback jersey. Does this mean he isn’t Loeffler’s type of guy? Is he too good of an athlete to be buried on the depth chart? Only time will tell, but something tells me that he won’t be listed at quarterback much longer.

Disappointed that we didn’t see Brendan Motley at all today. I wanted to see how his transition to college quarterback was taking form.

One final thought: DJ Coles intrigues me. He still has great hands, but has bulked up a little bit while rehabbing from his knee injury, which was obvious in terms of his explosiveness off the line. The offense used him in a lot of different ways, including motioning down onto the line of scrimmage as a second tight end or H-Back, and he was effective as both a receiver and a blocker (even took Edwards for a ride on a run play).

Spring Scrimmage Observations by Mike Yourshaw (mikey4vt)

Offense

The offensive line is a major work in progress. The pieces are there, but the guys are going to have to come a long way from where they are. They didn’t get too much push, and a lot of times were blown up (Matt Arkema and Nick Acree got chewed out by Grimes). We have to remember they’ve practiced in a new system for only two weeks, and the depth chart is nowhere near set. I’m confident they’ll get better.

It’s purely zone blocking. This made me happy to see after switching blocking schemes every series last year. We aren’t going to see a lot of huge gains, that’s not the point of zone blocking. Expect us to gain 3-6 yards on most carries, but each run slowly gets closer to the end zone. In pass pro, the pocket collapsed often, which caused Logan Thomas and the other quarterbacks to throw off their back foot.

The majority of run plays were zone leads. There were two fullback sets as well as a fullback and H-Back lined up in the backfield for the zone leads. D.J. Coles lined up at H-Back a lot in this formation, and on play-actions he ran routes into the flat.

There was way too much pre-snap motion for my liking. Yes, it’s nice to get the defense off-balance, but it’s not needed every play. I saw shotgun to I-formation with the tailback starting at receiver (never ran a play with the back at receiver, so the defense didn’t have to honor it) as well as countless receiver motions.

Logan looked…decent. I didn’t see any passes that sailed or skipped off of the ground, but he wasn’t exactly "accurate". At the beginning of the scrimmage he looked a little bit flustered but calmed down as the scrimmage went on, throwing a few absolutely beautiful balls. He still had a tendency to stare down receivers, which resulted in two interceptions. On his first interception the center was pushed back into him causing him to throw off his back foot. The ball was underthrown and in the air forever, so Der’Woune Greene had time to pick it off. The second was Kyle Fuller reading Logan's eyes and getting in front of Josh Stanford. He did connect with D.J. Coles on a nice deep ball, and was a foot too long on a deep ball to Stanford.

Trey Edmunds looks like a man’s man at running back. He’s built solid, and has a burst and quickness similar to J.C. Coleman. That’s pretty impressive when you’re 6-1, 215. I didn’t notice him running with the ones today, but when he was in, he almost always got positive yardage. He broke around a 15-yard run behind the #2 o-line against the #1 defense.

J.C. Coleman got all of his reps with the ones. He was very shifty and was able to cut and fit through some tiny seams. There were yards after contact, and he was able to push the pile one time, something we didn’t see much last year. To me, he looks like a change of pace back with Trey as the main guy. Michael Holmes got reps with the ones and twos, and looked more explosive than last year. At times he did look tentative and he fumbled once.

The wide receiver routes looked quite a bit different from last year. There were more routes from 10-25 yards compared to previous seasons. I saw a lot of curls and out routes. The receivers dropped a lot of balls today. Some were right on the numbers, others were in the hands, but they all were unacceptable to drop. Josh Stanford looked excellent with his routes, but did have a few drops. Knowles is still a burner, and was able to come back and make the catch on an underthrown ball from Thomas. It looks like the top receivers so far are Coles, Stanford, Asante, and Knowles, but it’s clear the competition is still wide open.

Defense

Woody Baron looks like he’s in position to take the #4 defensive tackle spot. Baron and Kris Harley rotated in and out of the tackle spots with the ones, and were the starters with the #2 defense. Baron looked good in his time on the field, and on a pass rush he had a nice spin move and got to Leal for the sack.

The defensive line wreaked havoc on the offense. James Gayle did whatever he wanted out there, and got to the quarterback countless times. Dadi Nicolas was the most notable end behind Gayle. He blew by Laurence Gibson for a sack on one play and contained Michael Holmes’ (blew up Holmes and forced a fumble) cutback on an inside zone.

The defense looked like they knew the offense was going to run on every play. It looked like the 4-4 scheme for the majority of the day, and they sent about 9 guys on every run.

Brandon Facyson surprised me. For only enrolling in January, he was one of the more impressive defensive backs. He did let Stanford get by for one long gain, but he was glued to him for much of the day. Detrick Bonner did well at free safety. He chased down receivers and didn’t allow any gains over the top.

Special Teams

A.J. Hughes' two punts were absolutely beautiful. Each had excellent hang-time and they were long.

Kysheon Jarrett looked explosive on his two punt returns.

The scrimmage today was what most of us expected. The offense is still learning, and the defense looks outstanding (even with Jack Tyler missing the scrimmage for class).

First Open Scrimmage Thoughts by Andrew Berlin (tonkaberlin)

I am satisfied with everything I saw at the scrimmage today. Things are exactly where I expect them to be, given injuries, new players, new coaches, etc. The main feeling I got as I walked away is that these new coaches have not made any decisions on who the starters will be, and every player is competing to earn the starting job. I concentrated on the offensive side of the ball and here are my takes:

The running back competition is the position I was most curious about. Edmunds looked very strong and confident from what I saw. He ran hard and attacked without hesitation, fighting for yards after contact. J.C. Coleman seemed too small to make plays through contact, and projects to be an impact player in the open field, something Loeffler will have to scheme for. I love the kid's heart, but aside from Duke I just haven't seen big things from him yet between the tackles. He may be listed as #1 right now, but from what I saw today, Edmunds and Holmes were the better backs. Edmunds didn't get as many touches as I'd have liked, but he looked great when he did. Holmes looked good on the first team offense vs second team defense, but struggled and hesitated against the first team defense. Still, he looked better than I saw from him all season last year.

As for the receivers, Asante and Stanford were targeted the most. Both struggled at times to actually catch the football, but Asante had a great 8 yard gain in the red zone on a screen pass. So hopefully we can have some wide receiver screens that actually work next season. Coles and Knowles weren't targeted much, but each had an incredible long catch-and-run, with Coles using his strength to break free of some defenders, and Knowles using his speed. I got the feeling that Coles and Knowles have proven themselves in these practices so far and the coaches were just trying to evaluate Asante/Stanford. Unfortunately, I didn't pay much attention to wide receiver blocking.

I'm no expert on line play, and I only have one note where "#63 [Laurence Gibson] missed block" resulting in Thomas being sacked. He whiffed entirely on the block, unfortunately. So obviously there are still kinks to work out on the offensive line, but that doesn't concern me very much at this point. I'm sure others who have a lot more knowledge on offensive line play can comment further. The tight ends were targeted a few times if I recall correctly, but I only have one Ryan Malleck reception in my notes.

Finally, Logan Thomas looks like he has been improving. At first, he was very shaky and looked like 2012 Logan Thomas, but after the first few passes, he calmed down and started making much more accurate passes (minus the single awkward back-foot lob that was an interception as soon as it left his hand). His bombs to Knowles and Coles were beautiful (though he floated the one to Coles just a tiny bit more than I would have liked) and he almost had at least one more that Stanford very nearly came up with (slightly overthrow into the end zone). His short passes looked less forced, the play-action was good enough to fool me, and his movements didn't look terribly exaggerated. He showed poise in the pocket and patience when he was scrambling. I really, really like what Loeffler has been teaching him. You guys are going to like what you see in a few weeks.

So like I said, I saw what I had hoped to see today. The offense is making strides, but is far from perfect just yet. Personnel is nowhere near finalized, but everyone looks improved from last season. I'm still slightly worried about how our secondary fared today, but I honestly was entirely focused on offensive play (though it was impossible to not notice how the first team defense had its way with the second team offense). Evaluating scrimmages is always a tough task, but I think today's was a success.