Thoughts from the Spring Game

• Fantastic crowd. According to www.gopack.com, 15,273(or so) loyal Pack fans crammed into the western seats of Carter Finley to watch Saturday's scrimmage. I'm always proud of the fact that no other school in North Carolina gets behind football in the kind of numbers like we do.
  
  
• Quarterbacks: Burke's stock rose, Wilson's fell and Beck's stayed about where it was, which is to say I've never felt that high on him to begin with. Beck continually stared down his receiver on nearly every snap and rarely went through any progressions. Burke, on the other hand, looked much more poised in the pocket and did a much better job going through his reads. Wilson showed the nervousness of someone who'd never taken snaps in front of a large audience. He missed a few open receivers and looked shaky in the pocket. It's worth noting that he's splitting time with the baseball team, as well, so when he can focus 100% on football he may improve. He did show an element of escapability that none of our other quarterbacks posses. That may help him when fall practice starts and TOB faces the tough test of deciding on the QB among the five choices (Beck, Burke, Evans, Glennon, Wilson) in front of him.
  
  
• Running backs: It's tough to say; with Baker and Brown both out with injuries, Jamelle Eugene was the only scholarship RB available for much action. He did look solid carrying the ball, outrunning defenders on the edges to turn would-be losses into 5-7 yard gains.
  
  
• Wide Receivers: Donald Bowens. Donald Bowens, Donald Bowens, Donald Bowens. This junior has the opportunity to really blossom into one of the great Pack WRs in the vein of Torry Holt, Jerricho Cotchery, etc. He's got the size and speed to catch just about every pass, and on Saturday he bailed out his QB on more than one occasion. If our QB settles into a comfortable, solid status then I think Bowens could have a huge year. The question is who will step up to fill the role of the #2 receiver to take the pressure off him. That will likely be settled in the fall.
  
  
• Line play: Eh. Tough to say. I can't say one unit looked better than the other. The defensive line didn't dominate our offensive line or get much pressure on the QBs--it's a glass half-empty/half-full scenario depending on your perspective. If I had to give the edge to one group it probably would be to the offensive line, given that typically your defense is ahead of your offense this time of year. That they fought to a scratch means the offensive line overcame that minor edge the defense supposedly possesses. But splitting hairs that thin is really, really trying to find something.
  
  
• Funnel Cakes: Smell great cooking.
  
  
• Posters/rosters: FINALLY, someone in charge got the right idea to put someone in charge of distribution to limit two posters per person. Why it took this long to get that done, I'll never know, but kudos to whoever made that call. So many more folks got posters this year (read: me) than have in the past because of it.

Now football goes into hibernation for the longest four months of the year. Yuck.

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Spring Football Game This Saturday @ 1:00

Spring is in the air and pollen is on the cars...must be time for spring football!

State will conclude their spring practice session with a scrimmage open to the public to be held this Saturday at Carter-Finley at 1:00 p.m.

I've got to admit, I'm a much bigger believer of the way TOB is running the Spring Game than did Amato. Here's a quote from the story found at www.packpride.com:

Opening Thoughts:
The Spring Game is Saturday at 1:00. We will try to run the game similar to what we did last year and separate into teams. There will be no kickoffs or kick off returns and we'll definitely kick field goals and extra points if we're able to score. We will punt and punt return if we're healthy enough to do that phase of the game.

The teams will be split up on Friday morning after we get the injury report after Thursday's practice to see how we can best separate up. We'll play like we did last year, normal 15-minute quarters and game conditions for the first half and then we'll play a running clock in the second half just because we don't have enough bodies to last a whole game.

It's always good to play a game. Something always happens within the framework of a game that you just really can't simulate on the practice field even though you try. Every year something comes up that I think is real good for the football team one way or another.

I never was a big Amato basher, but when he switched the Spring Game from the "game" format to the Day Of Champions, with the tests of strength and agility in the RBC Center, I was thoroughly non-plussed. What am I supposed to take from the team heading into the summer by watching Adrian Wilson show off his ridiculous vertical leap? I'm impressed, of course, but that doesn't answer any questions about the team.

That last bold quote from TOB is EXACTLY what you want to hear from your coach. He's looking for every last opportunity to prepare his team for any and every gametime scenario that may arise.

We've got a FOOTBALL coach, folks.

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