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Fall scrimmage

Buff_since76

Still a fan...
Club Member
First, I was only able to be there for about 45 minutes (stupid work), but here is what I saw:

-
The scrimmage was vanilla. There wasn’t anything fancy. The offense/defense had two basic formations
o 3WR, 1TE, 1RB to the D’s 4DL, 2LB, 5 DB
o 2WR, 2TE, 1RB to the D’s 4DL, 3LB, 4 DB
- The plays had no motion, no shifting, and no blitzing
- QB’s were not reading the defense and adjusting to formations
- Defenses were not reading the O, and making adjustments
- The #1 and #2 were

QB - #1 Tyler #2 Cody
RB - #1 Speedy #2 B-Lock
WR #1 - #1 Clemmons #2
WR #2 - #1 Will Jeff #2 Paul Richardson
WR #3 - #1 Scotty #2 Espy
TE #1 - #1 Deehan #2 Thornton
TE #2 - #1 Walkers #2 never ran this formation
LT - #1 Solder #2 Harris
LG - #1 Adkins #2 Richter
C - #1 Stevens #2 Iltis
RG - #1 Miller #2 Dannewitz
RT - #1 Baharti #2 Givens (they did rotate)

DE - #1 Herrod #2 Kasa (the both got time with each group)
DT - #1 Pericak #2 Obi
NT - #1 Cunningham #2 Bonsu
DE- #1 Josh Hartigan #2 Tyler Ahles
ILB - #1 Webb #2 Rippy (Sipili was on the side line w/o pads)
OLB - #1 Major #2 Mahnke
OLB - #1 Tyler Ahles #2 – never saw as they didn’t have the formation to match
NB - #1 Orms #2 Sandersfield
CB - #1 Brown #2 Vigo
CB - #1 Smith #2 Olatoye
S - #1 Polk #2 Smith
S - #1 Perkins #2 Ewing

I only saw the warm-ups and first two drives. For every good thing I saw on one side of the ball meant a bad thing on the other side. Tyler had a great long ball to Will Jefferson. Will was 7 yards behind the defenders, did some weird thing with his feet while adjusting to the ball, and ended up dropping it. The ball was very well thrown from TH and should have been a 70 yard TD. The #1 offense scored a TD off a 20+ yard TH run. He had the option to hand to speedy or keep it, and everyone bit on the hand-off. It was a great fake. During the drive the offense had a second and long, TH threw a pass to Scotty, who was double covered. There was a very tight window to get the ball in to Scotty, and it landed perfectly. There were two bad throws by Tyler, one short pass that was a slightly lazy throw and was tipped at the line. The throw was early in the drive and the receiver did catch the ball. The second bad throw was to Deehan who was double covered, and the ball bounced of the LB’s head.

The second team O went down and scored a TD as well, but there was a difference in the plays. CH had the quick out throw, and as we often saw last year the ball was low and away, forcing the WR to adjust to catch the ball, and not giving him time/position to make a play. Net result was a ½ yard gain. On another throw Cody focused on Espy and hung him out to dry. To me, Terrell Smith took it easy on Espy, but still completely de-cleated him (Espy did a great job of holding on to the ball while being hit). Had it been a real game I think Smith could have KO’d the WR. Cody had a few decent throws to move the ball, but B-lock did a good job running the ball, and scored on a 7ish yard run.

As I said before it was vanilla. It does look like the offense we saw in spring is going to be the offense we run. For those looking for CU to develop an identity, we are going to be a 3-wr, 1-te most of the time offense. We will be out of the shotgun formation most of the time. The running game will be direct hand-offs, delays, and QB option reads. Passing will have a timing routes, quick throws, and deep balls.

The defense was running a basic D so not much to report on that front. They had 1 QB hurry vs. Cody, 1 tipped pass vs. Tyler, and 1 pass defended on each QB.
 
I saw just slightly more than you. agree with most everything. Hirshman got sacked once since he didn't have a "no contact" jersey. Patterson was in shorts and pads (no contact jersey) but did run routes in the warmups and was the deep option more than once. Scotty bailed out the #1 O on the first drive. Really liked the size of guys like Darden and DeVaugn Thompson....in the warmup QB's throwing to WR's and DB's, Trea Jones had some trouble with the dropsies. Dustin Ebner got hurt on either the first or second kickoff (they were back to back). Clemons has a deep catchable ball he could not make the grab as well though TC continues to look the part....we went after the seam route a few times. #99 Micheal O'Conner (?) lined up at FB and TE on a few plays. Lockridge converted a short yardage situation with #99 leading the way from the FB position....which I thought many AB'ers would enjoy.

Hanson scored on a called run play on the first drive. An option play with Hirshman was less successful and slower to develop. there was some YAC visible on the 3 1/2 drives i saw. some elusiveness from Speedy and Hildreth.....i was talking to the guy next to me when it appeared they switched to 3rd down conversions of various yardages....but, i had to jet for a meeting.
 
Good stuff, thanks fellas. Overall, did the scrimmage make you feel better, worse or about the same about the team?
 
Good stuff, thanks fellas. Overall, did the scrimmage make you feel better, worse or about the same about the team?

I am sorry, but this is going to be a little bit of a long winded answer and you will have to give me a little leeway to explain.

DH says there is a “razor hair” difference between CH and TH. If you close your eyes, don’t watch any of the games, and look at a stat sheet afterward you may say they are statistically close. If you actually watch the game, and see the plays they make, how TH can keep plays/drives alive. You also see how Cody may rack up yards/completions on 3rd and 8 by hitting a guy on a 3 yard quick out that doesn’t get the first down, and getting yards on the last two drives of a game when the game is already lost. The stat sheet may say its close, the eyeball says one guy is better than the other.

Most of our opponents look at the 3-9 record and say we suck. They all mark an X in the win column in predictions for the season so by that rational we will go 0-12. Why will we lose? We will lose because we lost 75% of the time last year. It doesn’t matter the reason, or the method that we lost, by losing last year we will continue to do so this year. There is a big difference between the way the guys played last year, and how they are playing this year. There may not be a stat sheet to point to, or one big name coming on to the field, but there is a difference in the speed, intensity, and emotion that is on the field. Another big plus is we are getting talented guys on the field (Miller, Major, Solder, Polk, Deehan, Smith, Webb, Kasa, Herrod, Givens) The are guys who were big recruits, or are thought of fairly highly by scouts and others. They are now players who have game experience and are comfortable/familiar with the college game. There is visibly more leadership from both coaches and players. One thing I really liked during the scrimmage is how vocal RP is. He was really working on those WR and helping them out. Hagan was following RP’s lead and talking to the RB’s on the side and on the field. The involvement of the coaches seemed to almost be contagious. It was a good change from last year. The other big plus is how vocal the players were. They were talking to one another, and shouting words of encouragement. It was nice to see that bit of emotion.

The team will be significantly better than last year, and that was a feeling I had going into the scrimmage and coming out of the scrimmage. It will be a compination of things that determines how much better they are in the win column.
 
I'm sorry, did that say Josh Hartigan as a #1 DE?!?! Maybe I'm over reacting but color me concerned if we have a 220 lb converted linebacker starting at DE.
 
I'm sorry, did that say Josh Hartigan as a #1 DE?!?! Maybe I'm over reacting but color me concerned if we have a 220 lb converted linebacker starting at DE.

It did, but I think it's because he messed up the formations a bit. West is the #1 DE opposite Herrod, but he's hurt. Beatty is the #1 OLB, but he's hurt. I think what was going on was probably a lot of 34 sets. But if it was a 43 look, I'm a bit surprised that Kasa doesn't move over to West's spot instead of Hartigan starting. And Ahles should never be lined up as a DE. He is Beatty's backup.
 
I'm sorry, did that say Josh Hartigan as a #1 DE?!?! Maybe I'm over reacting but color me concerned if we have a 220 lb converted linebacker starting at DE.

I think that's just because West is out right now right?
 
I'm sorry, did that say Josh Hartigan as a #1 DE?!?! Maybe I'm over reacting but color me concerned if we have a 220 lb converted linebacker starting at DE.

I am pretty sure that was only due to West and Beatty being out, along with Kasa and Herrod both working on one side.
 
Most of our opponents look at the 3-9 record and say we suck. They all mark an X in the win column in predictions for the season so by that rational we will go 0-12. Why will we lose? We will lose because we lost 75% of the time last year. It doesn’t matter the reason, or the method that we lost, by losing last year we will continue to do so this year. There is a big difference between the way the guys played last year, and how they are playing this year.
I assume you are meaning that people think we will lose this year because we lost last year but that you think we will not lose.
 
Thank you for the summary of the scrimmage.

I like the tone of your second explanation to KingPants better than the tone of the editorial in your original post. I was sort of feeling down after your original post, but your second one made me feel like they still look like a better team.

Go Buffs!
 
Looking at the stats on cubuffs.com would lead the casual observer to agree that the competition between Hansen & Hawkins is indeed a "razor hair" (whatever the hell that means). Looking a bit further, Hansen's rating is much higher, his completion percentage is higher, and his rushing numbers are better. This isn't even close, folks. Name Hansen the starter. Today. Enough of this goofing around already.

This looks like it was heavily favoring the offense, too. Not a lot of rushing, either. Nobody had over 50 yards on the ground. Speedy's average was 2.2 YPC. Not good.
 
Biggest questions I have:

Did they guys look like they knew where to line up?

Did plays get in quickly?

Was the aggression/intensity high?

Do we look faster than last year?

Did we do a better job of avoiding penalties?
 
Biggest questions I have:

Did they guys look like they knew where to line up?

Did plays get in quickly?

Was the aggression/intensity high?

Do we look faster than last year?

Did we do a better job of avoiding penalties?

5 penalties in 156 plays, I think.
 
  • A few other tidbits

  • Hartigan looks pretty good. He is very quick off the edge and gets good pressure. Open your mind to that one.
  • Bahktiari showed a lot imo. The guy is very mobile and must have excellent technique, b/c no one could beat him. Cat Quick.
  • Hansen looked very good. Late in practice he threw a pick 6 to Orms (surprise there).
  • Terrell Smith had the hit of the day on poor Espy. Espy held on. No chance he took it easy on him either. You could hear that one big time in Folsom. Boom.
  • Paul Richardson will NOT redshirt. He's got great hands, can jump, and make YAC.
  • Will Jefferson has improved more than any player I've ever seen at CU. He's a different guy. He's Really Good.
  • Cefalo had an unbelievable catch from Cody late in the practice.
  • Cody also threw a bad interception late, but the DB dropped it. Hawkins I believe.
  • They used Kirkwood, then Goodman and then Castor as kickers. all made most of them. Kickoffs weren't great though, but Castor seemed to have the biggest leg and reached Endzone
  • Early punts from Grossnickle were poor but he had several after that which were very good
  • #99 made an impression - not in my program. CUbuffs.com has him as Michael O'Connor from Englewood / Fort Lewis College? Played some FB and HBack.
  • Cefalo was the 2nd team receiver, along with Espy & Richardson. Espy caught a lot of passes.
  • JT had a nice run late. Dude looked surprisingly tough & fast.
  • Majors stuffed a play vs. 2's on 3rd and 1. I also heard him tell his family he wasn't happy with how he played today. The guy looks like Jesus with the mop on his head and growth on his face. That guy is very mobile for an inside LB. He was covering RB's very well.
  • Terrell Smith - what a find. BLock had a nice run that he cut to the outside and I thought would score. Terrell ran him down very quickly. Guy looks like he'll play this year.
  • Deehan was WIDE open on play that Hansen hit Scotty in double coverage. Great throw but missed the wide open guy.
  • Mahnke stuffed one back in Cody's face for a batted ball.
  • Nate Bonsu was in there a lot with the 2's. He, Goree and Obi take up some space.
I expect there will be some shifting in the 1s/2s/3s when they grade out film. Will be most interesting to me to see what transpires as we go forward at RB. I kind of think the upperclass guys (at all positions) held their positions from opening of camp thru today. Tomorrow, some things will start to change perhaps.

We have a lot more players at WR who look fast.
 
Biggest questions I have:

Did they guys look like they knew where to line up?

Did plays get in quickly?

Was the aggression/intensity high?

Do we look faster than last year?

Did we do a better job of avoiding penalties?

Yes to all the above - especially the first two units. Also ran some hurry-up no huddle stuff and I hope we see a lot of that. Way better than 2 years ago.
 
Looking at the stats on cubuffs.com would lead the casual observer to agree that the competition between Hansen & Hawkins is indeed a "razor hair" (whatever the hell that means). Looking a bit further, Hansen's rating is much higher, his completion percentage is higher, and his rushing numbers are better. This isn't even close, folks. Name Hansen the starter. Today. Enough of this goofing around already.

This looks like it was heavily favoring the offense, too. Not a lot of rushing, either. Nobody had over 50 yards on the ground. Speedy's average was 2.2 YPC. Not good.

Although I agree with this assessment, it should be noted that Cody led the #2 offense against the #1 defense. He had more pressure and less protection in general. He also had some more confusion at WR (Richardson is not where Jefferson is in terms of the playbook, etc).

But still, it's obvious who the better athlete is.
 
Good stuff thanks for the reports...

Hopefully we'll be seeing a revived Buff team this fall.
 
I may be paranoid, but I have this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that keeps telling me that they're designing plays in scrimages in order to justify keeping the QB competition open. That certain plays are called for one QB in order to make his numbers look better. Then a certain coach can look at those numbers as justification for starting one particular player instead of the other one. Good Lord I really, really hope I'm wrong, but I can't get that thought out of my head.
 
A few questions:

Did the D give up any gashers?
Were we taking care of the little things?
Did we run any fake punts or FG's?
Did the guys play without being over emotional?
 
If Hartigan is seeing significant playing time come September, we are in trouble IMO. Really hope West is not going to have lingering injury issues all season.

Cautiously optimistic about the offense, still concerned about the front seven on defense and special teams in general.
 
A few questions:

Did the D give up any gashers?
Were we taking care of the little things?
Did we run any fake punts or FG's?
Did the guys play without being over emotional?
You negative bastard, I knew you'd turn this into a bash Hawk thread....:smile2:
 
If Hartigan is seeing significant playing time come September, we are in trouble IMO. Really hope West is not going to have lingering injury issues all season.

Cautiously optimistic about the offense, still concerned about the front seven on defense and special teams in general.

Hartigan is only going to be used in passing situations at DE. BJ Beatty is out right now. Hartigan puts some serious pressure on the QB though with his quickness. He surprised me a LOT.
 
A few questions:

Did the D give up any gashers?
Were we taking care of the little things?
Did we run any fake punts or FG's?
Did the guys play without being over emotional?

i demand an answer!!! :pissed:
 
Hansen's poise is 1000 times from where it was last year. Obvious #1 QB, pick six to orms notwithstanding. Little Hawk was borderline awful, even when he was running with the 1s.
 
  • A few other tidbits

  • Hartigan looks pretty good. He is very quick off the edge and gets good pressure. Open your mind to that one.
  • Bahktiari showed a lot imo. The guy is very mobile and must have excellent technique, b/c no one could beat him. Cat Quick.
  • Hansen looked very good. Late in practice he threw a pick 6 to Orms (surprise there).
  • Terrell Smith had the hit of the day on poor Espy. Espy held on. No chance he took it easy on him either. You could hear that one big time in Folsom. Boom.
  • Paul Richardson will NOT redshirt. He's got great hands, can jump, and make YAC.
  • Will Jefferson has improved more than any player I've ever seen at CU. He's a different guy. He's Really Good.
  • Cefalo had an unbelievable catch from Cody late in the practice.
  • Cody also threw a bad interception late, but the DB dropped it. Hawkins I believe.
  • They used Kirkwood, then Goodman and then Castor as kickers. all made most of them. Kickoffs weren't great though, but Castor seemed to have the biggest leg and reached Endzone
  • Early punts from Grossnickle were poor but he had several after that which were very good
  • #99 made an impression - not in my program. CUbuffs.com has him as Michael O'Connor from Englewood / Fort Lewis College? Played some FB and HBack.
  • Cefalo was the 2nd team receiver, along with Espy & Richardson. Espy caught a lot of passes.
  • JT had a nice run late. Dude looked surprisingly tough & fast.
  • Majors stuffed a play vs. 2's on 3rd and 1. I also heard him tell his family he wasn't happy with how he played today. The guy looks like Jesus with the mop on his head and growth on his face. That guy is very mobile for an inside LB. He was covering RB's very well.
  • Terrell Smith - what a find. BLock had a nice run that he cut to the outside and I thought would score. Terrell ran him down very quickly. Guy looks like he'll play this year.
  • Deehan was WIDE open on play that Hansen hit Scotty in double coverage. Great throw but missed the wide open guy.
  • Mahnke stuffed one back in Cody's face for a batted ball.
  • Nate Bonsu was in there a lot with the 2's. He, Goree and Obi take up some space.
I expect there will be some shifting in the 1s/2s/3s when they grade out film. Will be most interesting to me to see what transpires as we go forward at RB. I kind of think the upperclass guys (at all positions) held their positions from opening of camp thru today. Tomorrow, some things will start to change perhaps.

We have a lot more players at WR who look fast.


you get the infamous AB YMSSRA.....thanx for the recap
 
I also attended the scrimmage. Pretty much agree with what has been posted - my impressions:

Tyler Hansen is CLEARLY the best quarterback on the team. Hansen to me was the star of the scrimmage. He looked really good. He has much better pocket presence than when I saw him at the preseason scrimmage last year. He had several deep balls that were right on the money. One was dropped by Tony Clemons, another was dropped by Will Jefferson. He hooked up with Scotty McKnight on a nice 40 yarder despite tight coverage. Hansen ran for a td, too, showing his mobility.

Cody was Cody - he just doesn't have the arm strength of Hansen and skipped some balls off the turf. He's an adequate backup with a great attitude but you don't want him as your starter.

When I attended the same scrimmage last year I thought Cody SHOULD be the starter based on that scrimmage. Hansen last year was too raw. This year Hansen was much much improved.

Hirschmann reminded me of Hansen last year. He has a good arm (much stronger than Cody's) but he was indecisive in the pocket and needs more work.

Clemons didn't do much today. He had a drop on the long pass I mentioned and on another shorter pass he bobbled it before getting it under control. Clemons just didn't seem to be getting as many looks as the other receivers.

UCLA transfer Paul Richardson looks very good - the most impressive receiver to me. Other than his drop on the long pass Will Jefferson had his moments too.

There were mixed results on the kicking:

Marcus Kirkwood made his first field goal (about 35 yds) then on another try he kicked it straight into the line. Also Kirkwood was short on kickoffs. If it were just kirkwood I'd be concerned about the fg kicking but ..

Goodman looked OK - he made 2 fgs in the 35 yard range. He looked ok in the scrimmage last year and later struggled during the season so let's see if he can be more consistent this year.

Freshman kicker Justin Castor has a good leg. He boomed a kickoff from the 30 that went 5 yards deep into the end zone. I saw Castor make one medium range fg, too. After I left I read that he made a 52 yard field goal.

I was more concerned about the punting. Grossnickle had a series of punts from the 20 yard line: the distances I recorded: 24 yds, 31 yds, 35 yds, 35 yds. His best kick was a high one that was fair caught after 35 yards. This is a division 1 punter? He also had a terrible shank when kicked from the 40 (went out of bounds after 10 yards and into the stands). After I left I read that Grossnickle was booming kicks later in the practice, so there is still hope he can get his act together before the CSU opener.

My early gut feel on the CU Buffs:

6 wins 6 losses because of much improved quarterback play (Hansen) and more receiving weapons.

Thanks to the person who recommended the Harvest House for parking. That worked out fine - nice walk along Boulder Creek and the tennis courts to get to Folsom.
 
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Sounds like we might be decent this year, thanks guys. Should we be concerned about the punting? Sounds like Grossnickle was bad at best and we also had a punt blocked. Nice to see Castor hitting a 52 yarder, if he can show some accuracy I'd rather we send him out there than Goodman.
 
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