I was at the first part of the scrimmage today, leaving when they broke out for drills after they scrimmaged for 30 minutes or so. A few random observations:

-Rodney Hall is back with the receivers, which is probably his best move.

-Childers and Thompson split time with the ones, with Childers going first.

-As has been reported the first O-line was Marques Cox, Austin Warner, Benn Olson, Brayden Patton and Isaac Hawn left to right. Take that with a grain of salt since presumed starters CJ Perez, Nate Veloz and Jordan Steckler sat out with green jerseys. The second O-line was Cole Webster, Zeke Geuths, Owen Rozumalski, Calvin Dassow and Nolan Potter left to right. The first line did just OK, the second line got dominated. I felt bad for QBs behind the second line because every play seemed like a jail break.

-Brinkman, Crawford and Lersch got most of the TE work with the ones.

-Wideouts were Tears, Richie, Robinson, Tucker and Leon Payne. Payne impressed me today.

-Starting D-line was Kennedy and Lorbeck at end, Heflin and Leroy at tackle. The second D-line was Quintin Wynne, Weston Kramer, Caleb Wright and Jawon Denton. I don't know if the plan is to play Wright at tackle or he's just pinch hitting because of short numbers there.

-Linebackers were AJD, Deveaux and Vinny Labus, with Kyle Pugh sitting out in a green jersey. Backups were Jordan Cole, Cortez Hogans and Joe Bonds, a nice looking group for 2020 and beyond.

-DBs were McKie and Haney at corner and Williams and Foster at safety with various combinations behind them.

-The defense had the upper hand while I was there and that might be an understatement. They really need to get those three missing O-linemen back for the first unit and, as I mentioned, the second unit was overmatched. D-linemen were in the backfield the whole time and Lorbeck had an especially good day. It was really hard to get much of a take on the offense from the part of the scrimmage I saw.

-Richardson hit a 51 yard field goal which was nice to see.

-All the QBs threw some nice balls in drills for what its worth.

I was just about to post a scrimmage thread but I’ll just put my wthoughts here:

Definitely looked like a team learning a new offense. O-line struggled and made it hard to evaluate the QB play. All the QBs were running more than throwing as the pocket broke down. Jiya Wright ran way too much. Thompson was ok at best. Childers easily is #1 right now. But Bowers doesn’t have to do much to pass him. It was kinda typical Childers. Over threw wide open 6’7” TE Soragahn and over threw wide open TE Brinkman. But was solid most of the rest. Passing game is kind of a mystery still.

Positives:
Brinkman, Nettles, Harbison, Robinson, Wynn

Thoughts:
Robinson can snatch a ball away from anyone

Richie will be third wr. Just not sure Tucker brings enough and Richie looks really quick(assumed #3 out there was Richie)

Rodney Hall will rot away on the bench.

Marques Cox looks lean for 300#.

Nettles looks like the best playmaker.

Brinkman is pretty damn good. Expect plenty out of him.

Smith and Scharping on the sidelines.

If the line and receivers block the RBs can take it to the house. We didn't get a lot of long TDs last year. We have to fix that.

Disappointing that Childers is still missing wide open receivers at this point of his career. No wonder Hammock made a transfer QB a high priority...

Hammock Pleased with First Spring Scrimmage

Quote:DeKalb, IL – New NIU football head coach Thomas Hammock put his 2019 Huskies through its first extended live tackle scrimmage of the spring Saturday at Huskie Stadium, and afterwards, Hammock said he was pleased with what he saw from his team in the two-hour and 15-minute workout.

Looks like the offense did better after I left, thank goodness.

(04-06-2019 06:28 PM)NIU1981 Wrote:  Looks like the offense did better after I left, thank goodness.

The offense did run the ball very well. That includes Childers and Wright. But the passing attack just didn’t have consistency. The primary guys were TEs. Nothing really big or even impressive to the wrs. The wrs never felt like a threat today. But we will give that time to develope.

I was there from 12:30-2:10 and I would say the observations/comments from the other posts are pretty thorough and reflect what I saw also.

How did Michael Kennedy look today at DE? Seems that they are trying to catch lighting in a bottle twice by moving a former RB to defensive end. I read an article that he’s got some quickness off the edge.

Glad to hear about Brinkman looking good. Offense is always behind D in spring and probably more so when a new offensive system. Teams can look really bad on spring.

(04-06-2019 09:01 PM)JoeNovak Wrote:  How did Michael Kennedy look today at DE? Seems that they are trying to catch lighting in a bottle twice by moving a former RB to defensive end. I read an article that he’s got some quickness off the edge.

I didn’t watch too much of D-line play in the scrimmage. When I did I was watching Lorbeck and Wynne. But I definitely noticed Kennedy in one specific drill cuz I said - who is that getting completely manhandled? It was the one on one drill to get to the blocking dummy. Kennedy just got eaten up. And it wasn’t even against O-linemen.

I echo the more thorough posts on the board, I was with my family so didn’t get as thorough a look at all the positions. As for QB, Childers is definitely the #1 but still misses down the field. Thompson was decent. Jiya was lost, looked like a deer in the headlights, so he has some maturing to do football wise. Running game looked good.
During individual drills the TE were on the other side of the field from the wideouts. Our LB had a really hard time covering most of them. I’m hoping more good TE play than bad LB play.

(04-06-2019 06:03 PM)badmoonrising13 Wrote:  Disappointing that Childers is still missing wide open receivers at this point of his career. No wonder Hammock made a transfer QB a high priority...

At this point we all know what we do have and what we do not have with Childers. He has some talent, he seems like a great kid, he is tough as nails. However he is inconsistent in the short, medium and long passing game.

(04-08-2019 10:00 AM)bikechuck Wrote:  

(04-06-2019 06:03 PM)badmoonrising13 Wrote:  Disappointing that Childers is still missing wide open receivers at this point of his career. No wonder Hammock made a transfer QB a high priority...

At this point we all know what we do have and what we do not have with Childers. He has some talent, he seems like a great kid, he is tough as nails. However he is inconsistent in the short, medium and long passing game.

With how bad are offensive line has looked, might not have to worry about medium or long passes as the QB won't have time to complete.

Probably been answered already but when does the new QB get here to start practicing? Gonna be stoked for his first day whenever it is.

He has to graduate from Cal first. I would believe he will be at summer workouts. First official practice will be fall camp.

Graduation at Cal is May 18. I would expect Bowers here shortly after that to begin working out informally with our team and building rapport with our receivers.

didn't see any mention of Marcus Kelly... he is injured? figured he would be in the rotation with the DL

Kelly was not dressed on Saturday

(04-08-2019 11:43 AM)clcfball11 Wrote:  Probably been answered already but when does the new QB get here to start practicing? Gonna be stoked for his first day whenever it is.

(04-08-2019 12:29 PM)NIU1981 Wrote:  Graduation at Cal is May 18. I would expect Bowers here shortly after that to begin working out informally with our team and building rapport with our receivers.

I read somewhere (already forgot exactly where) that Bowers himself was quoted saying he intends to arrive in DeKalb in June.