Staying true to an emphasis on ball security in spring drills, the VMI offense did not commit a turnover, but the defense not allow any lengthy drives with big plays during VMI’s first spring scrimmage held on a sun splashed Saturday afternoon at Fiorini Field.
The scrimmage, which had 42 snaps and mixed in with a variety of scenarios and special teams work, generated eight first downs. The offensive units, however, did not reach the end zone until late in the workout.
Returning starting quarterback Al Cobb completed his first five pass attempts and finished with seven completions in 11 attempts for 47 yards and a touchdown. Cobb connected with tight end Ryan Swingle for a 12-yard score in a red zone drive situation. Redshirt freshman Austin Coulling saw plenty of work and completed 8 of 15 passes for 85 yards and tossed a 20-yard TD pass to redshirt freshman Mason Dermott.
Rising sophomore Quan Myers led all ground gainers with 21 yards on seven attempts and senior Alex Keys, working at running back after three years in the secondary, gained 16 yards on five attempts.
Rising senior wide receiver Aaron Sanders, who led the SoCon in receptions in 2015, caught four passes for 23 yards while Swingle snagged three aerials for 24 yards and a touchdown.
Highlighting the defense was redshirt freshman defensive back Uzoma Kpaduwa who finished with four tackles including a jarring hit on Keys on the first play of the third series of downs. Junior inside linebacker Troy Barden also had four tackles while sophomore outside linebacker Gabe Sutherland was credited with a quaterback hurry and tackle-for-loss. Michael Williams, Alijah Robinson, and Ryan Francis each had pass break-ups during the afternoon.
Four penalties were called – three on the offense and one on the defense.
VMI resumes spring practice on Tuesday, April 18 at 4:30 p.m. and will hold another scrimmage next Saturday, April 16.
Postgame: VMI coach Scott Wachenheim
On his first impressions of the scrimmage: “I thought it was an excellent day of work, we got over 40 plays of live scrimmage and had every special team covered and had just about every special team situation. Very productive on that end. I thought the offense did a great job taking care of the football with zero turnovers. We’d like the defense to get turnovers. I thought the defense did an excellent job of limiting the offense to a low yards per play, but obviously I’d like the offense to hit a few more explosive plays. Those are the things we are working on to win football games. Field goals and extra points needs to improve immediately, if not sooner, because we’re going to play a lot of close games just like last year and we have to find a way to be on the winning end of that.”
On the progress of spring practice: “I think we are ahead of a lot of teams. This is practice seven and we’ve gone over just about every offensive situation – short yardage goal line, red zone offense, first down offense, second down offense, third down offense and defense, and special teams situations and I’m very pleased with that. We’ve gone seven practices in 10 days, that’s fast, but that’s the way we have to do it based on our schedule. Excited that we are healthy, I think that’s a tribute to how our kids worked in the weight room and our training staff. Now we are going to keep adding on to what we are doing, there’s a few more things to install offense and defense, but we’ll also go against what our opponents do because our offense and defense is unique and our offense needs to see some four down defensive work, our defense needs to see Citadel, Wofford, and Akron style of offenses.”
On the quarterback play: Al Cobb is way ahead of where he was last year even where he finished at the last game of the season Austin (Coulling) is really ahead of schedule as well and I’m impressed with the way the young man is handling things. Solid, solid, second team quarterback and he’s got a bright future ahead of him.
On the position moves of personnel: “Alijah Robinson (to outside linebacker from secondary) is outstanding. That move has been good. Jade Maher (quarterback to receiver) made a couple of plays at wide receiver today. We’re still evaluating Alex Keys at running back (from secondary). I think he is doing a good job but that position takes a little bit longer to get a feel. I like every move we have made and I think it’s made huge dividends. Matt Nicholson (former receiver) continues to impress at safety.”
Share
Contributors
