Sunday scrimmage

[skippy57.0]

All in all, Sunday's scrimmage was a pretty good show. The offense moved the ball at times, but the defense didn't give up big plays. Dan Thompson called it the best scrimmage he's seen in three years of covering the Bengals in his Journal blog.

I was most impressed with the Bengals' power running game. They ran a lot of two-back set today, with Jayson Bird the up-back and Kenyon Blue as the tailback. Ben LaPorta, who will probably redshirt, ran the ball and blocked well. Throw in Knickrhrem and Cornist, and the Bengals are going to be a good power running team. Blue had some nice runs, too, it's apparent he will be the Bengals' speed back.

The receivers all showed good hands, and Edsel Logan made a circus catch. ISU ran Messersmith out of the backfield as well as TE, and he made a nice ankle-high grab.

Defensively the DBs did a nice job, nobody was really wide open most of the time I was watching, and they didn't give up any big plays. Defensive line is still a muddle, but it looks like they have a lot of options. Don't see anybody really dominant on the D line, but plenty of depth.

 

[lagneb]

Thanks for the update Skippy. I have been out of town so it has been fun catching up on all football posts this evening. I was hoping for a better defensive effort today from the Dline. The news about a two back set is great to hear--I like the options that gives our running effort.

 

[D.M.]

When the starting d-line only gets 9-12 plays. It's hard to make that evaluation. When they were in there on those 9 PLAYS. The offensive went know where. 3 penalties, 4 yards. The D-line is pretty set up front. The offensive started moving the ball a little when they took the starters out. But in a scrimmage it's supposed to be an offensive show. So I would take the starters out to. The ones that stayed in there the most needed the work. The line backers and d-backs got 25-30 plays each. I think I counted correctly; the most any d-line starter got was 12 plays out of 60. The 4s got more work. But the depth on the d-dine looks good. We should see more from the d-line in the second scrimmage. The reason for the d-line up-date is because there is none. As a d-line player myself (younger days)... I can respect that position. Remember a good d-line makes everybody else looks good. So go the trenches, so goes the game.

"Be The Best