Saturday Morning Scrimmage Notes

This morning, the Wildcats held their final scrimmage of the spring. Consider it a preview of the spring game, which will take place on Thursday. Unfortunately, I didn't watch the freshmen and JV, and I have no videos to share. However, there were some good-looking underclassmen scrimmaging with the varsity. In all likelihood, they'll be on one of the JV squads next season, but they performed well. There's still plenty of talent in the pipeline to make the Cats a factor in the district for the coming years.

Quarterbacks

Bryson Powers and Austin Goffney did not participate. So, the Cats went a rotation of Jordan Johnson, Sean Despres, and Brighton Gullickson. The last two are both going to be juniors in 2015 and they were the primary quarterbacks on the JV Gold (B) team last season.

Sean was probably the top offensive performer in this one. He was at the helm for two scoring drives: one was capped off by a pitch to Jack Barrientez, who bounced outside and got the corner of the endzone. On the other one, Sean capped it off himself, evading a couple of tackles in the open field on his way to the endzone.

At the sub-varsity levels, Jordan Johnson was a quarterback. He reprised that role this morning and was behind center for a third scoring drive, which culminated with him finding Sam Landingham on a slant for a touchdown. He also put his legs to good use with a few good scrambles.

Jacob Kainer spent much of the morning as a linebacker, but I think he got a series at quarterback. He took a 20-yard-loss on a botched screen play, but on the very next play, he gained all of those yards back on a scramble, which brought up a much more manageable 3rd & 4 situation.

Running backs

Still no R.J. Harmon. C.J. Jones got the majority of the first-team reps, and three sophomores, Khari Keaton, Bobby Dodson, and Jack Barrientez rotated with him. Jack also shuffled between slot receiver and running back.

This was my first look at C.J. Jones in a scrimmage. A bit rusty, but he broke off two or three runs that resulted in first downs, and he caught a pass for a first down, too.

Bobby Dodson had a nice 20-yard (or so) run up the middle about 3/4ths of the way through the scrimmage. He also converted a 3rd down with a tough 6-yard run. He was on the freshman A-team last year, and hung in there very well going up against the older kids this morning.

Wide Receivers

Jared Taylor started off the scrimmage with a bang as he caught a pass from Jordan and took it inside the 10-yard-line. Unfortunately, nothing came of the first drive of the game.

Sam Landingham, who will be a junior, caught a touchdown from Jordan Johnson.

Seth Despres, a senior, caught a pass from his brother, Sean, and got a nice 25-yard gain out of it. Another senior, Josh Carter, also had a catch and made a nice move in the open field to get a first down.

I don't feel like I can make accurate judgments on the offensive line, so I will abstain, courteously.

Defense

The defense has performed very well and was extremely motivated all spring. They've got a chip on their shoulders.... allowing 455 points in the prior season can do that. Coach Faith, as we know, was a defensive coordinator, so I imagine that last year's performance left an incredibly bitter taste in his mouth.

As I mentioned earlier, Jacob Kainer spent this scrimmage as a linebacker, and I thought he performed rather well in that capacity. He is not only showing his versatility; he is also demonstrating that he has a high football aptitude, looking as though he's been a linebacker all through his young career. Because of this aptitude, I believe that he's the top overall prospect in the Wildcats system.

After Jared Taylor's big play to open the morning, the defense clamped down and kept the offense out of the end zone. They followed that up with 4 consecutive 3-and-outs before Sean Despres and the offense finally broke through.

Tobi Orundami, a sophomore nose tackle, will definitely one to remember for the future. Already one of the larger kids in the program, he strikes me as a pretty laid-back kid, and sometimes, "laid back" is a code phrase for "low energy." I don't really like the assumption that if someone has a laid back demeanor, then he's a low-effort player by default. He certainly did not show a lack of energy this morning, as he was a force at the line of scrimmage. Tobi's upside is tremendous, and I hope he continues to make strides as a player.

I didn't like the fact that the D-line fell for the hard counts... definitely going to need to clean that part up. Otherwise, they continued to play with great energy. They've taken it to their counterparts on the offense all spring.

All that's left is Thursday. The Cy Woods Spring Football Game will take place on Thursday, May 21. The sub-varsity will lead things off, and the varsity will wrap up the spring football season at 7:00.