My thoughts on the spring game

[chinngiskhaan]

It was nice to see the offenses move the ball. The few other times I’ve sat down to watch the spring game the offense has seriously struggled to move the ball on at least one of the teams. That wasn’t the case this time. The offenses didn’t dominate though, which is also good.

I’m especially impressed with our RB and TE groups. It just seems like such a can’t miss combination of talents there. How on earth do you defend so many different mismatches?

Also, hard to make any real determinations since most all of the proven guys didn’t play.

QB: I thought Barnes looked to be the more “ready” of the two, though JJ has better tools overall. He is obviously faster/more athletic, and has what I would guess is a stronger arm by quite a bit. They both played better than most other backup QBs I’ve seen in these games (they usually look more like that other dude, who I hope never plays a single down at the U, he wasn’t good, though that could be because of a lack of snaps I guess). I’d be happy with either of these guys being #2. I think JJ is more likely to get PT in certain packages, but if we had a game tomorrow, and Rising wasn’t available, Barnes would get the start. I’m more optimistic about this group than before the game.

RB: TT looks good… not sure his fumble at the goal line was an actual fumble, looked like the ball was still in his hand when it hit the ground. Glover was the best RB today. I wasn’t impressed with Parks, and I don’t recall Curry getting any run, which was odd. I am more optimistic about the future of this group than I was before the game.

WR: My man Masaki Kudo finally showed up! Haha. For real though, Vele is looking outstanding. Money Parks looks good, Makai Cope looks good. None of these guys are going to be all world WRs, but each of them has a skill or two that will make them useful. Rowan also looked pretty good. Enis is what he has always been. A good option when needed. Doesn’t make mistakes. I’m MUCH more optimistic about this group than I was before the game.

TE: TIGHT ENDS! SO MANY FREAKING TIGHT ENDS!! Even with the two top dogs out, we still had what seemed like 4 or 5 tight ends catch balls. Munir scored I think (converted WR). I’m excited to see what he can do at tight end with his athleticism. I can’t be any more optimistic regarding this group than I was before the game.

OL: Seemed like they played fine, though there were clearly a half dozen or so times when they didn’t pick up a guy on blitz coverage. I just hope we figure out the best group BEFORE the start of fall camp. That should be the goal IMO. I have faith in this group, but I’m still mostly neutral and will be until I see what happens in a real game.

DL: Junior Tafuna looks like a 40 year old man. Also, how the heck did O’Toole put on so much freaking weight in one offseason? Dude was rail thin last year, and now he looks like a freaking beast. I will never not be optimistic about a UofU DL.

LB: Nobody really stood out here. Maybe they played well, maybe they didn’t. Not worried.

DB: Nice to see Broughton out there, he made a bunch of plays. Rawls, Savage, and Lawler all made good plays. Bishop is obviously a stud. The only big negative was #3 (I think that’s Rawls) getting outran by Bryson Barnes, that’s a little concerning but not really. I’m sure this group will not be a weakness.

ST: No clue here

[Utah5410]

All I kept thinking was. We are sitting out half of our guys and the backups look like our starters did 3-4 years ago. It’s incredible the amount of depth we have.

[BD]

I kept thinking the same thing. I remember years ago when Connor Manning threw 3 interceptions IIRC and Donovon Isom had like 15 yards of total offense in the spring game.

Our walk on players today could do better than that, let alone the twos and threes.

[DrJazzy]

Thanks for the write-up! 

[kazute]

My favorite play of the game.

Cope One-handed Catch

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