Scrimmage Recap
April 17, 2003 07:45 PM | General
April 17, 2003
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Defensive back Jerry White gave West Virginia a wake up call Thursday.
White, a 6-foot, 190-pound junior from Rockville, Md., came like a bolt of lightning at running back Hikee Johnson, sending the husky 207-pound ballcarrier to the ground in pain after an eight-yard run.
Up to that point, Thursday’s situational scrimmage was plagued by offside penalties and lackadaisical play. In fact at one point early in the scrimmage West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez made it a point to remind the defense that the scrimmage wasn’t two-hand touch.
“I think it got people’s attentions and the intensity level came up after that,” said the coach. “As a coach you’re always leery of getting guys hurt in the spring but at the same time we’ve got to be physical.”
Thursday’s scrimmage was comprised of third-down situational work, some regular scrimmaging and goal line situations. Rodriguez rated today’s scrimmage a tie between the offense and the defense.
“We try to make this a competitive situation where we’ve got a little point system where we keep score,” he said. “We finished completely tied at the end so they had one more play and the defense won that play. The offense will get a little bit bigger muscles after that doing push-ups.”
The first team offense’s best opportunity to score during regular scrimmaging came when wide receiver John Pennington took a flanker reverse into the end zone from 2 yards out, but the first offense was whistled for a holding call on the play.
The first defense eventually forced the offense to try a 28-yard field goal Brad Cooper missed to the right.
Both of the offense’s touchdowns came during goal line situations. Pennington scored on a 10-yard pass from Rasheed Marshall for the first team, and freshman Jason Colson scored on a 5-yard run with the second group.
Redshirt freshman defensive back Aaron Meckstroth came up with the only turnover for the defense when he picked off a Dwayne Thompson pass with the third group.
Marshall completed 5 of 6 passes for 49 yards and a touchdown for the scrimmage. Hikee Johnson carried 6 times for 20 yards with both the first and second groups, while catching a 24-yard pass from Marshall for the longest play of the scrimmage.
Rodriguez says the numerous offside penalties by the defense was disappointing.
“I was frustrated by the offsides because our centers did some things to draw them off and this is the first time we’ve done that,” said the coach. “We thought we might draw them off, but after once or twice you have to wake up and not do that.”
Overall the coach saw things he liked and didn’t like.
“There was some good and there was some bad,” he said. “The intensity kind of came in spurts. At the end it was pretty good, at the beginning it was bad and in the middle it was okay. I think we got some work done and we’re getting better at certain spots and that’s good to see.”
Notebook: West Virginia is off this weekend for Easter and will resume practicing on Monday, April 21. After that, the team will have one final full-contact workout on Wednesday before the Gold-Blue Spring Game on Saturday, April 26 … Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Kendall Simmons was at practice Thursday and gave the offensive line a pep talk after practice. Simmons played for offensive line coach Rick Trickett at Auburn … Coach Rich Rodriguez says injuries have limited what his offense could accomplish today, “We had some downfield passing-game stuff and some wide receiver screens that we really wanted to work on today but some of the guys we're working with were unable to go.” ... Rodriguez mentioned that there is a pretty good battle going on between Alex Lake and Jay Henry for the backup Mike linebacker spot behind starter Adam Lehnortt ... Lehnortt remained home tending to family matters after the death of his father Fred last weekend. Rodriguez said Lehnortt has as much time as he needs before returning, "We'll let him pick his time as far as when he's ready to come back and when he gets back he'll get a whole lot of hugs from our family."
