Saturday Scrim

longhorn_22 · Post by **longhorn_22** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 5:34 pm

http://msubobcats.com/news.php?sid=h&nid=978

Cats looked pretty good from what I have read. The injuries have me a little worried, though I don't think they will be too serious in the long run.

CelticCat · Post by **CelticCat** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 5:55 pm

Crud, Matakis went down! I hope several months equates into the end of summer.

We've had a pretty good looking squad on both sides of the ball for the scrimmages, but we've had an awful lot of injuries already.

Can someone compile a list of injured players? I bet there are 6-7 starters out for at least spring.

gtapp · Post by **gtapp** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 8:50 pm

Four knee injuries in a week plus all the shoulder problems we have had in the recent past. I have never heard of a college or NFL team having so many injuries as we have had the last two years. TIME FOR A NEW STRENGTH COACH!

bobcatbob · Post by **bobcatbob** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 12:48 am

WE will be ok. The depth is good. Clive Lowe was awesome today. Also, very impressed with the receivers and running backs. Keep the faith!

Barnbat · Post by **Barnbat** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 8:13 am

CelticCat wrote:Crud, Matakis went down! I hope several months equates into the end of summer.

We've had a pretty good looking squad on both sides of the ball for the scrimmages, but we've had an awful lot of injuries already.

Can someone compile a list of injured players? I bet there are 6-7 starters out for at least spring.

Word has it offense looked pretty good. Also a new defensive set was to be built around Matakis. I did not attend. Was there a new defense and was the offense effective before the injury?(was the defense a factor before or after the Matakis injury?)

MSU01 · Post by **MSU01** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 9:24 am

Matakis went down on only about the third or fourth play of the scrimmage, so there wasn't really a chance to compare how things went with and without him. I thought the other guys who played nose guard did a pretty nice job, although Matakis is huge and will be a big loss. The real strength of that defense will be the 4 linebackers...they are very impressive and made a bunch of plays yesterday. The running game should be improved this year, as I agree with others that Domenick looks to have slimmed down a bit over the offseason and is quicker this year. Groves looked impressive as well.

Barnbat · Post by **Barnbat** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 10:15 am

01-Thanks for the quick, good, clear response to my questions.

HelenaCat · Post by **HelenaCat** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 10:31 am

The rumor last nite was that Matakis tore his ACL, which means he is probably out for next year. Although I am told you never know for sure until the MRI is done. I talked briefly to Brant Birkeland last nite and his knee injury is just an MCL-no surgery and he will be back. Also understood that Zach Wolf's injury is not too serious. I don't know enough about this kind of stuff to say that a new stregth coach is needed??? It seems to me that when you have 270-300 pound kids banging each other you just have some chance of this kind of stuff happening. Brant described his injury to me and it just sounded like a fluke where he was engaged in a block and someone was pushed into the side of his knee. What can a strength coach do to prevent that? I believe all the O-lineman at least wear knee braces all the time also, don't they?

Other than the Matakis injury, there were a lot of bright spots yesterday. Tramaine Murray looked real good and so did Mike Brown. Toby Rundle and Tyler Lulay did not stand out as much as in GTF, but they both made a few plays. The only receiver not shining right now is Chaz Guinn. I still think Chaz has the abilty to be a big player for us, but he better watch out for some of these younger receivers or he may lose his starting job. We really do look to have some talent at this position at least two deep. Don't forget that Gatewood and Roosevelt will also be back in the fall!

All 3 running backs looked good yesterday. I hope that JD will be spending the summer in Bozeman and keeps working out faithfully, because he looks like a different player this year. Just slimmed down significantly and so much quicker. Gathing did not have great stats, but he runs hard every play. Even if he does not play much as a RB, he is very valuable as a backup and he was a monster on special teams last year before getting injured. But boy was I impressed with Evan Groves. This was the first I have seen him play and he looked quick and elusive. He is not a huge back, but appears very well built. His first run up the middle for about 16 yards sure woke a number of people up-he just has a look of something very good. I hope I am right!

Overall, the defense seemed to play well, but the offense definitely looked a bit better. I am still hopeful that our defense will be fine because I believe our offense could be something special next year. Clive Lowe looked very, very good. The move to LB will free him up just a bit rather than having him engage directly with a huge offensive tackle right away and I think he could create some havoc next year from that position. The other LBs make this a real position of strength.

The offensive line looked solid again also. The starters yesterday with the injuries were Verlanic at center, Bolton and Figueroa at guard, and Hirst and Decock at tackle. Other than Verlanic who probably needs to gain a bit more weight and strength, that is a huge offensive line.

I also thought both young QBs looked very good. I have always thought that Carpenter had a great arm, but his speed and elusiveness yesterday surprised me when he ran and scrambled a few times. I always thought that Coppack was a good athlete and had running/scrambling ability, but his arm strength and passing surprised me a bit yesterday. So, really, both kids looked very good. I still am afraid very much of Travis sustaining an injury next year, but only because Travis is so special and I really want him to have a great senior season. If he did go down, I think we have two capable QBs behind him. I guess I gotta say that for the first time I can remember in a long time, our QB situation from 1-3 seems far better than that other team to the west. That is pretty exciting because the griz have had a lot of talent at that position for some time now.

wbtfg · Post by **wbtfg** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 10:54 am

Nice analysis HC! I second pretty much everything you said.

Offensively, I am confident in our QBs, RBs, WRs, and OL. I still think that the TE situation needs to improve before next season. I think we have quality guys, but they are very young, and need to add a little weight. The only dim spot on offense was Chaz Guinn. He really looked like he didn't want to be on the field at all. He was our leading receiver for the first couple of games last season, and all of a sudden he looks like our worst receiver. Right now I would put the three freshmen (lulay, rundle, and brown) in front of him.

Defensively, I am still a little worried. They made some great plays, but they didn't really stop the O too much. LBs look great!!! DL is still shakey, and the loss of Mataikis is really going to hurt. I was a little disapointed with Kolone, but I had to remind myself that he's only a frosh. He made some good plays, but also seemed to be daydreaming quite a bit. We played a lot of zone coverage, so it was really difficult for me to judge how well the secondary was playing. Is Eddie Smith ever going to play?? Hunter, Fuller, and Force all looked pretty good...Austin did not. Bottom line is that we need to find a way to put a hell of a lot more pressure on the opposing QBs than we did last year.

Kick Games. Bolton looked just okay. I think he has a pretty big leg, but I really think that the snap/hold messed up his timing on a couple of attempts. I think that Bolton will be fine.

Misc: Hunter and Parker got into a big time fight. I'll bet that Hunter got in at least 5 upper cuts to the chin of Parker. Kramer grabbed them both and chewed their asses big time.

There were two black guys in street clothes on the sideline that I didn't recognize. One was wearing sweats and had long latrell spreewell like cornrows, and the other was wearing jeans and had short hair. They didn't look like injured players currently on the roster, and I don't think that they were former players, anyone know if they are potential recruits?

MSUcantouchus · Post by **MSUcantouchus** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 2:46 pm

My thougths on the RB situation

Dominic looks a little quicker but still doesn't seem to find his holes real well. He seems to have a bit of trouble picking his blocks to follow. Alot like last year. I hate the play where he takes the handoff and goes toward the sideline at 3/4 speed looking to cut it up but 90% of the time is ankle tackled for a loss. Saw that a lot last year and in the eastern game and saw it a few times in the scrim. Also a few near fumbles, though they may have been QB exchange.

Gathing looks very fast and i think that he is battling to JD to start. He has told me that he is still gettign his speed aback from before his knee injury. IF he can catch the ball and pick up blitz well like JD, is yet to be seen.

Groves was about what I expected. Looked quick and powerful out there. Changed direction better than the other two. I would like to see him get bigger but then again he isn't exactly small. He has a future here for sure.

Intellegence is really the key for these guys. They all seem to have adequate to pretty good athletic talent but the intangibles are what will separate them.

Hell's Bells · Post by **Hell's Bells** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 4:20 pm

peedintunnel wrote:My thougths on the RB situation

Dominic looks a little quicker but still doesn't seem to find his holes real well. He seems to have a bit of trouble picking his blocks to follow. Alot like last year. I hate the play where he takes the handoff and goes toward the sideline at 3/4 speed looking to cut it up but 90% of the time is ankle tackled for a loss. Saw that a lot last year and in the eastern game and saw it a few times in the scrim. Also a few near fumbles, though they may have been QB exchange.

Gathing looks very fast and i think that he is battling to JD to start. He has told me that he is still gettign his speed aback from before his knee injury. IF he can catch the ball and pick up blitz well like JD, is yet to be seen.

Groves was about what I expected. Looked quick and powerful out there. Changed direction better than the other two. I would like to see him get bigger but then again he isn't exactly small. He has a future here for sure.

Intellegence is really the key for these guys. They all seem to have adequate to pretty good athletic talent but the intangibles are what will separate them.

can we find out some obscure ncaa rule that will let ryan johnson have another year of eligibility? i am sure we can turn his freshman year into a psudo red-shirt

Cat Grad · Post by **Cat Grad** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 11:18 pm

This means our Kalispell recruit will have to spend the summer in Bozo, and given a choice, I doubt anyone would rather spend the summer screwing around the Flathead when they could be in the Gallatin studying for the first game in Stillwater. I'm sure there's a lot of defensive players already called him and asked when he'll be out of school and in town. Some of them had better plan on taking him under their tutiledge soon.

94VegasCat · Post by **94VegasCat** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:30 am

One thing that I saw a lot of was cut blocking by the o-line. The play right after Matakis went down, the left guard went after the nose again. Rogers was on the sideline bitching a little bit about the cut blocking. I understand that techniques need to be mastered to be effective, but at what expense???

I was really impressed with the whole team!!! I thought that everyone played well and I am far more excited about the season now, than I was a month ago. Kolone and Saucedo are huge and are gonna be great. Papich was an animal, as was Lowe. King, Marudas, and Mollohan were everywhere. The db's did ok, but I am positive they will excel come fall.

The offense seemed very effective. JD was much faster than I remembered, Gathing and Groves were super impressive. All of the wideouts played really well. I think we will be deep in these positions. The o-line did a pretty good job considering all of the injuries to the starters. Our young QB's did a much better job than I anticipated. They seemed relaxed and confident. They both threw some strikes and the receivers held on to the ball very well. The TE's had some drops, but as a whole were good. We need to quit saying that "if Travis goes down" becuase that is not an option.

I think that the coaches have developed a much deeper team than the one we had last year. That speaks volumes for what Kramer and his staff have done. 2005 will be a fun year and the years to come will be good too.

Helcat72 · Post by **Helcat72** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:02 am

Maybe Carpenter and Coppack won't be able to pull out games like Lulay does...maybe they will...but I for one am relieved that we are in good hands for the next three years.

Robcat · Post by **Robcat** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:39 am

Carpenter has shown me that the Ctas will be in confodent hands next year and will be great this year when Travis needs a break. I sure hope we see this kid on the field this season. Carpenter thinks well on his feet, has a good arm and can scramble. This kid knows whats going on at all times and totally keeps his head in the game. I am very, very high on Carpenter. Is he as good as Lulay, probably not but given the chance he might be. The QB situation for next year is in very capable hands.

PDXKat · Post by **PDXKat** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 9:12 am

Robcat wrote:Carpenter has shown me that the Ctas will be in confodent hands next year and will be great this year when Travis needs a break. I sure hope we see this kid on the field this season. Carpenter thinks well on his feet, has a good arm and can scramble. This kid knows whats going on at all times and totally keeps his head in the game. I am very, very high on Carpenter. Is he as good as Lulay, probably not but given the chance he might be. The QB situation for next year is in very capable hands.

You must think he's a lot better than Coppack? I was just wondering why - I think there's still a battle going on for #2. I like them both btw.

wbtfg · Post by **wbtfg** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 9:15 am

I guarantee that if either Carpenter or Coppack were on the grizzlies, they would start this year. If saturday was a griz scrimmage, all the griz fans would be ready to book their tickets to 'nooga, and annoiting Carpenter as the next DD. I love having THREE quarterbacks that can toss a ball better than anyone on the griz roster.

grizhatr · Post by **grizhatr** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 9:33 am

Yes it is great that we have 2 in the cupboard, both with great attributes. After watching the scrimmage on Saturday, it is reassuring things are heading in the right direction. Just to comment on an earlier post, it is a concern with the injury bug, continuing. I made a comment last year about the strength coach comment as well. I am starting to wonder if there is substance to that issue once again. Regardless, I am looking forward to Thursday's scrimmage, weather permitting. You would never know it was 68 degrees on Saturday by looking out the window today. Guess that's spring in Bozeman. The one person I am truly looking forward to watching next year is Tyler Lulay.

Robcat · Post by **Robcat** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 11:28 am

PDXKat, Don't get me wrong, both Carpenter and Coppock looked great. However I felt that Carpenter was more in touch with checking off his receivers and continuing to look for those WR's even after he was flushed out of the pocket and under pressure. Coppock did not seem to read the field as well. When it came time to scramble Carpenter seemed to read the holes well. From an arm standpoint both were very good. Its a shame to see these two great athletes riding the pine this fall. Maybe they will see some action in the 4th quarter when we have the Giz down by 20 points. Either one of these guys would be starters over in Griz land.

Cat Grad · Post by **Cat Grad** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 11:34 am

Just curious. Should one of them get a redshirt? Don't have my program here so don't know if one (or both) has (have) already burned one.