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Plenty of Scoring in Saturday's Gold-Blue Game
April 23, 2016 03:01 PM | Football
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. - Skyler Howard threw three touchdown passes and the offense crossed the goal line seven times during Saturday’s Gold-Blue Spring Game played at The Greenbrier Sports Performance Center in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
“It was a great way to end spring practice,” said West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen of today’s one-hour, 45-minute scrimmage in front of an estimated 6,000 fans.
Howard misfired on just five first-half passes and finished the scrimmage completing 18 of his 26 attempts for 270 yards and three touchdowns.
The only blemish for Howard was a third-quarter pass that Antonio Crawford intercepted along the far sideline and ran 23 yards for a touchdown. Overall, Mountaineer quarterbacks threw four interceptions today.
“The one interception that concerns me - and I have to give credit to Antonio Crawford for that because he saw the back leak late and Skyler’s eyes are supposed to go to that back and he threw it and Antonio made a great play on that ball,” said Holgorsen. “It depends on which side I am sitting on. I’m happy for the fact that we made that play on defense but offensively we’ve got to prevent that.”
Howard’s touchdown passes covered two yards to fullback Elijah Wellman, 12 yards to Shelton Gibson and 69 yards to Gary Jennings - all in the first half.
In the second half, true freshman Cody Saunders fired a 29-yard touchdown pass to true freshman Marcus Simms and a 25-yard scoring strike to backup quarterback David Sills.
William Crest Jr. threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Sills and Sills concluded the scrimmage with a 34-yard scoring toss to Ricky Rogers.
Combined, the quarterbacks completed 32-of-49 passes for 433 yards and seven touchdowns.
Saunders was particularly effective, missing on only one of his seven throws for 92 yards and two touchdowns.
“He looked good and we haven’t put him in that situation much this spring,” said Holgorsen. “We’ve eased him into it because we’ve got a lot of quarterbacks that we can rep but over the last week and a half we’ve noticed that things are starting to make sense to him so we repped him more and the more we’ve repped him the better it starts looking.”
Ten different players caught passes this afternoon led by Jennings’ 92 yards on four catches; Shorts and Simms caught a scrimmage-best five passes each, Shorts’ going for 86 yards and Sims’ accounting for 52 yards.
“(Simms) has no clue what he’s doing right now and it’s actually fun to watch because he doesn’t know what he’s doing and all he does is score touchdowns,” said Holgorsen. “He’s got a long way to go but he can start, he can stop, he’s got great hand-eye coordination; he can stretch the field and he’s going to be a contributor for us next year.”
True freshman running back Kennedy McKoy had the longest run of the scrimmage - a 30-yard jaunt midway through the third quarter - while Crest had several substantial gains against the No. 2 defense running the zone-read play at quarterback.
Crest was the leading ball carrier in today’s scrimmage with 89 yards on 12 attempts. Rushel Shell ran nine times for 50 yards with the first offense. The ground game accounted for 294 yards on 50 attempts; the offense accumulated 727 yards on 99 total plays.
Defensively, Shane Commodore picked off two passes, both thrown by Crest, Hodari Christian intercepted an Austin Hensley pass to go with Crawford’s pick-six.
The defense was awarded 46 points based on touchdowns, three-and-out possessions, drive stops and interceptions.
There were no fumbles and just a handful of penalties called in a fairly clean scrimmage. A number of key players did not participate Saturday, most notably wide receiver Ka’Raun White (shoulder), defensive tackle Darrien Howard (death in the family), and backup quarterback Chris Chugunov (shoulder).
“Our team is going to continue to change and continue to evolve with the addition of new guys and continuing to move forward,” said Holgorsen. “It’s certainly going to be fun watching this team develop.”
Today’s game concludes spring work for the Mountaineers. West Virginia opens the 2016 season on Saturday, September 3, at Milan Puskar Stadium against SEC-foe Missouri.
Season tickets for the 2016 campaign remain on sale through the Mountaineer Ticket Office and can be purchased online through WVUgame.com or by calling toll-free 1-800-WVU GAME.
Briefly:
* The Iron Mountaineers demonstrating outstanding work in the weight room during the offseason were recognized before today’s game by the WVU strength and conditioning staff - defensive tackle Darrien Howard, center Tyler Orlosky, fullback Elijah Wellman and wide receiver Daikiel Shorts Jr.
This year’s Tom Nickolich Award, presented to West Virginia’s top walk-on player, was given to Morgantown’s Jon Lewis. The Nickolich Award is presented by the Blue & Gold News.
Scoring Summary
Gold - 1, Wellman 2 pass from Howard (Gibson pass from Howard)
Gold - 2, Gibson 12 pass from Howard (Pass failed)
Gold - 2, Jennings 69 pass from Howard (Molina kick)
Gold - 3, Sims 29 pass from Saunders (Pass failed)
Blue - 3, Crawford 23 interception return
Gold - 3, Sills 13 pass from Crest Jr. (Molina kick)
Gold - 4, Sills 25 pass from Saunders (Molina kick)
Gold - 4, Rogers 34 pass from Sills
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