Right after I posted all the tweets I could find in lieu of actual statistics from today's scrimmage, Baylor did what I should have expected and posted the stats. Oh well. I'll keep that post up in case people want to look at it. Now that the stats are available, though, I have a few thoughts that I'll post here. The full practice report (with quotes) is available from BaylorBears.com HERE.
Before we get to that, here's a quote from Head Coach Art Briles that is sure to get your football heart racing:
On the scrimmage today:
"It is a lot of excitement, a lot of anticipation. It is like I told the players, there is one team in America from a big six conference that has the longest win streak and that is the Baylor Bears. We are fighting our tail off to make sure that stays that way. You can't stay on top unless you start on top. Anybody in America can say what they want to say, but we have the longest win streak and we are going to fight hard to keep it."
Now hit the jump:
First, the offense:
- The actual scrimmage itself only lasted about an hour, which equaled seven or eight possessions. Florence and the first offense had four of those, Petty and the second got three, and I believe Andrew Frerking and Seth Russell split another. Pretty standard in comparison to last year's scrimmage.
- Nick Florence's numbers (8-11 passing for 223 yards and 2 TDs, 0 INTs) were about like I expected. He was going against the second team defense and had all of his weapons. His offense scored twice on two plays of 70 yards or longer, a 70-yard pass to Lanear Sampson and a 75-yarder to Antwan Goodley. The pass to Goodley was of the catch-and-run variety.
- The offense combined for 425 yards passing but only 48 total yards rushing on 25 carries. 12 of that came on an end-around to Darryl Stonum. Our top three candidates at RB totaled 27 yards on 11 carries in the entire scrimmage. That's either great defense or pitiful rushing. I'm concerned that Glasco Martin averaged 1 ypc on 3 carries and Lache Seastrunk barely beat that with 5 yards on 4. Chris Bullajin from Baylor Scout seems to think the rushing offense was pretty vanilla, so that may explain some of the futility.
- Jay Lee caught two passes for 115 yards working with the second-team offense. Might we have a breakout candidate on our hands with the redshirt sophomore?
- Bryce Petty had a pretty rough day for an intrasquad scrimmage, going 10-20 for 157 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT to Sam Holl. Several observers said he was consistently short-arming passes. I like to call that Stephen McGee Syndrome.
- 11 different receivers caught passes today, including most of the usual suspects. Terrance Williams' only catch was a 42-yarder. I'm kind of curious why Jordan Najvar and/or Jerrod Monk didn't catch any. They may have been the victims of Petty's woes, though.
- Aaron Jones (Stork) was 3-4 with makes from 42, 47, and 48 and a miss from 42. How it typically works in these scrimmages is that the coaches force the offense to kick field goals rather than continue drives to give both sides a chance to work on that aspect. I wouldn't be discouraged by the fact that we attempted 4 FGs, is what I'm saying.
Defense:
- So, yeah, it gave up 425 passing yards. That's bad. But 48 rushing yards is really good, right? Some of that has to be solid play from the defense and not just bad offense, I just don't know how much. For the sake of my own sanity, I will say all of it is good defense because that makes them look good and takes the offense off the hook. Yay!
- In all seriousness, I'm glad to see the defense didn't get torn apart on the ground, I really am. I expected a pretty poor performance against the pass (maybe not 425 yards poor) and hoped to hear good things about run defense. This sounds good, at least.
- 4 players recorded sacks with two being LBs or DBs. Gary Mason, Jr. and Suleiman Masumbuko represented the DL in that respect.
- This quote from Phil Bennett makes me happy: The days of accepting mediocrity are over," said second-year defensive coordinator Phil Bennett. "We've got enough guys to make plays. We're not where we need to be yet, but we're getting there." Like Conner said in his post, Bennett has the background to say something like that, mean it, and have the words not ring hollow. It's worth noting that in a scrimmage like this our second-team defense is being asked to stop an offense that ranked in the top 5 in almost every major category last season. Yes, that offense lost its QB, best RB, and best WR, but there is significant talent on the other side being coached by one of the best offensive minds in CFB. I'd be a lot more concerned if the offense underperformed in the first scrimmage than if the defense did.
- There's not a lot more to say from the defensive side because the statistics are more limited. I'm curious why neither Javonte Magee nor Shawn Oakman appeared in the tackles section considering what I read about them today in other places. I don't know what that's about.
- I'm going to assume that Josh Wilson was playing with the second team when he amassed five tackles. Probably at safety. The same with Brody Trahan, except at LB. Although It sounds like, due to the shortness of the drives for the first teamers, the second team offense saw the bulk of the action.
- First team secondary apparently had Morton and Demetri Goodson at the corners, with Copeland and Williams backing them up, respectively. The big surprise as far as playing time out there may be 2012 recruit Terrell Burt. Looks like he may not redshirt, after all.