Scrimmage Updates!!!

[mikeirwin]

very very crazy!!!!

On a side note though, If Mortenson keeps looking this good, ROJO is on trouble

I'm not sure where you get that. Mort was 5 of 11 for 58 yards passing. He fumbled inside his own 10 for a turnover. He did take the offense from inside it's own 10 and up to midfield with a couple of key passes to Monk and Washington but overall his performance was okay not great.  Consider that there was no real blitz package in force and some of the defensive starters were held out.
By comparison Barthel was 5 of 8 for 85 yards. He was especially effective throwing to the tight ends. He did however throw a pick to Michael Coe who took it to the house.
I saw no evidence that RJ is about to lose his job.

[HogInMemphis]

I have to baby sit my two youngest ones tonight, feed us more updates!

You don't babysit your own kids, moron.

[Michael11]

Did Tyrell Graham play? Hogwired doesn't have him down for any tackles? And is Michael Smith still hurt? Rod Coleman play?

[mikeirwin]

I think McFadden will be the starter by mid season.

That one you could be right about. After spending the first two weeks in Felix Jones shadow behind that closed gate McFadden turned it up a notch tonight. We know he has speed but he got some tough second effort yards tonight. Ten carries for 79 yards. Not bad.

[Patch]

So far I've heard Barthel is the best, Mortenson is the best, Dick was the best, Barthel was the worst, Mortenson was the worst, Dick was the worst. RoJo is in danger of losing his job. RoJo is in no danger at all of losing his job. Gotta love the pre-season.  

[mikeirwin]

So far I've heard Barthel is the best, Mortenson is the best, Dick was the best, Barthel was the worst, Mortenson was the worst, Dick was the worst. RoJo is in danger of losing his job. RoJo is in no danger at all of losing his job. Gotta love the pre-season. 

RJ is the best and he didn't play. 

[Boarcephus]

]
I'm not sure where you get that. Mort was 5 of 11 for 58 yards passing. He fumbled inside his own 10 for a turnover. He did take the offense out of the red zone and up to midfield with a couple of key passes to Monk and Washington but overall his performance was okay not great. Consider that there was no real blitz package in force and some of the defensive starters were held out.
By comparison Barthel was 5 of 8 for 85 yards. He was especially effective throwing to the tight ends. He did however throw a pick to Michael Coe who took it to the house.
I saw no evidence that RJ is about to lose his job.

Thanks for the numbers.   IMO, Barthel has a pressence Mortinson lacks though I can't really explain why.  Granted, tonight is the first time I've seen either one but Barthel threw a better ball.   Good tight spiral, had zip when he needed zip, laid it in when it needed laid in, and for the most part put it where it needed to be, with the lone exception of the interception.   Mortinsons' ball wobbled on more than one occassion and the 5-11 says it all.  Sure hope RJ is head and shoulders better than either one.

[CorningHog]

This one was kind of hard to pinpoint exactly where we are on 1st team offense and defense. 

It looked more like a night to separate the 2nd teamers from the rest of the squad.  We have a "lot" of bright spots to me.

These things always seem to be hot and cold and although we ran a number of plays, I expect you will see two things for sure this year that we missed on last year.

Running game!  Running game, Running game!!!!!  Felix Jones did get a bad handoff and Cole made some nice throws and reads, as did Mortensen, but I still think Robert Johnson will be our man at QB.  Barthel may have a little better arm when his technique is bad compared to Mortensen, but when both get their feet under them, they are pretty much similar.  Barthel does have a little stronger arm.  Casey Dick has an even stronger one than both CB & AM but I think he needs to redshirt. 

I can see Hillis, Jones & McFadden getting a lot of reps at RB and Poole will too.  The passing game will be helped a lot this year with all these backs capable of breaking both long runs and long gains by catching a pass in the flats out of the backfield.

Monk, Logan and of course Baker & Washington will all be ready this year and the difference will be our guys catching the ball in stride instead of coming back for an underthrown pass.  The TE's looked good too and seem to be helping in the running game as well.

Defensively, it was hard to get a handle on them collectively as a "unit" but there are obviously some nice additions with the young guys and the youth infusion from a year ago has gotten more mature and experienced and I like the attack we have now.  We will certainly get more pressure and I think the run defense will be fine.  It sure looked like the substitutions were purposely in groups and Herring was seeing how we reacted to certain calls and plays.  Still rough around the edges but they will be fine once the next two weeks goes by and they get a live game under their belts.  Once Vandy gets here and they get put under the fire against an SEC team, even one that may not be the upper echelon, but one with a Senior QB with great credentials, we will see where our LB's and secondary are at.  I like what I am seeing!

Defense will be sound and more dangerous in the turnover making dept. and the running game on offense will just make our passing game that much more potent!

GO HOGS!

[thundergraham15]

I talk to Tyrell he played first team he said he thought he did good but 2nd and 3rd teams got more reps than he did but he is not complaining he was glad to be on the field. He said he didnt miss any of his assignments.

[Patch]

I talk to Tyrell he played first team he said he thought he did good but 2nd and 3rd teams got more reps than he did but he is not complaining he was glad to be on the field. He said he didnt miss any of his assignments.

I'm interested to know why 2nd and 3rd string got more reps than the 1st team.

[Patch]

So far I've heard Barthel is the best, Mortenson is the best, Dick was the best, Barthel was the worst, Mortenson was the worst, Dick was the worst. RoJo is in danger of losing his job. RoJo is in no danger at all of losing his job. Gotta love the pre-season. 

RJ is the best and he didn't play.

I'm glad to hear that. Mike, you've seen RoJo more than most of the rest of us, although not against outside competition. Is he a legit SEC QB, or did he win the job by default.

[Kilgor]

Looking forward to seeing him and the rest of the defense on the field this season MommaGraham!

[Jaison Black]

Mama Graham,

                       You have done a good job with that one. He was very polite and talkative unlike some of the players who were busy looking for that night's piece of tail. I know that i would get annoyed but i don't think i would be sitting there with a bunch of kids around saying," dude, get those two over here."

I will post some pics of some players and thoughts on them when i get up tomorrow, but i will say now that Graham and some others seemed to be very interested in meeting and appeasing some of the fans.

[mikeirwin]

So far I've heard Barthel is the best, Mortenson is the best, Dick was the best, Barthel was the worst, Mortenson was the worst, Dick was the worst. RoJo is in danger of losing his job. RoJo is in no danger at all of losing his job. Gotta love the pre-season.

RJ is the best and he didn't play.

I'm glad to hear that. Mike, you've seen RoJo more than most of the rest of us, although not against outside competition. Is he a legit SEC QB, or did he win the job by default.

He won it by having more experience. However he is faster and has a better arm than the other two. The key is the "outside competition" you mentioned. How will he deal with a big time SEC blitz package ?
None of these QBs are gonna set the world on fire. The key is to make them serviceable. I thought Alex and Cole looked okay tonight. I was worried it was gonna be a disaster. I like this post MJ offense. They moved the chains in some critical situations by going to the receivers (and especially the TE).

[hogfan212]

Mike thanks for posting on the scrimmage because I'm not sure lunchbox was at the same scrimmage that we were at.  I didn't think either QB looked good at all.  Felix and McFadden both looked extremely good and the defense looked way ahead of the offense as far as the progression you would think they would have made at this point.  The offense did look better as far as the play calling in the post MJ era.  The TE seemed to open on every pass play and they actually got the ball thrown their way.  As far as the QB's I thought Barthel struggled the most because he fumbled the snap on numerous occasions and he and the RB's had problems with the exchange on almost every hand-off.  But Mortensen wasn't much better.  In other words if RJ isn't the man then Mustain can forget about redshirting next year.  (The QB's could get better, I'm just going off of what I seen today.)

[ThisTeetsTaken]

The biggest impressions I came away with tonight are:
1. Casey Dick is gonna be good. I thought he was the best qb tonight.
2. Antwain Robinson is very disruptive as a defender. Looks like a stud.
3. Mort had a few good plays but he's not ready for SEC ball.
4. Barthel moved the offense fairly well but didn't look like he knew what he was doing a few times.
5. The defense looked more sound and looked more organized.
6. Darren McFadden is a stud. He needs to be the starting tb.
7. Felix Jones looked pretty good but he wants to bounce everything to the outside.
8. I think our running game is going to be strong this year.
The play of the game was a tie between Micheal Coe running an interception back about 90 yards for a touchdown and Casey Dick dropping a fade over Shedrick Johnson's shoulder right into his hands.

[PorkRyan]

Mort played against the second team.
Barthel played mostly against the first.
Barthel had better numbers than Mort.
Pretty easy to figure out who was the better of the two.

[Tomhog™]

I didn't get to see or hear it, but from what I've read, no one was just a standout.  If there were some standouts, I would think everyone would be in agreement on this player or that one.  Of course, with all the missing players, it's tough to gauge at this time.  We still have 2 weeks to fine tune, thank goodness.

[Feralhog]

Real quick, the defense  looked very fast, run D looked fairly solid and we were getting some nice pressure with the pass rush.   

OL may be the most athletic I've seen on the hill in sometime.  Some nice creases created for the RB's.

Poole looked very tentative.  Howard looked solid, especially in short yardage, but Mcfadden and Jones were very good, however, Jones fumbled the ball two or three times.  I was sitting up high and it was hard to see, but if memory serves me, Barthell was the QB both times, could've been poor exchanges??

Barthell looked very solid.  He made quick decisions for the most part, more times than not he put the ball in a good spot.

Mort looked ok.  On the plus side, he does a good job hanging in the pocket, however, he's a little slow on his reads and his arm strength is a bit iffy. 

Unfortunately, I left before Dick played.  If tomorrow, they told me  Barthell was our starter, I'd be fine with it.  If RJ is better than Cole, then that's even better. 

[stuckpig]

QBs.  Barthel looked a lot better than Mort. Cole has is a lot more aware of what is going on all around him.  This was evidenced when Felix Jones fumbled the ball and Cole Ran over and scooped it up really quickly.  It was a good sign.  Casey Dick, if he is coachable is going to be an excellent QB.  He just needs to learn the difference of when recievers are open in college as compared to high school.  He throws a pretty deep ball.  Mort looked awful.  He just made so many mistakes that I can't imagine him playing in a real game.

RB:  I was most impressed with McFadden(weren't we all?) he broke tackles and ran hard and fast, getting extra yards on almost every carry.  Jones was allright, but needs to work on his fumbles.  He runs fast, but from what I saw not quite as tough of a runner as McFadden.  Howard is very strong and can run over people, but he doesn't see the field as well as McFadden or Jones.

Wr:  Monk looked good even though he didn't play much.  Logan made a spectacular one handed catch.  Washington did not live up to his potential (even though he had a pretty good game).  Fish is very elusive...why his high school team ever started him at QB is a mystery to me.(they started winning after he got hurt and they had a different QB come in, then moved him to WR and became even better)

OL: They picked up all their assignments pretty well.  Didn't see as much pressure on the QB as I would have liked to so these guys are doing their jobs.

Overall the defense looked pretty good.  They dropped interceptions, though, but they swarmed to the ball.  I like Herrings scheme, but Im not too good at reading defenses.

[PorcineSublime]

I remember going to a scrimmage a few years back. We had a QB competition going and everyone was sure that one or this one was the best, The one that impressed me was this freshman out of FS Northside. Thing is, when I read the papers, no one even mentioned him. I thought he was the real deal, turns out I was right/lucky. Just goes to show scrimmages are not the best way to decide whether or not we will be a good team. But they are a lot of fun, and we get to see some of reggie's new defense. 13 days to the beginning of a new Hog dynasty/new low. At this point I don't even care which, just bring it on. WPS 

[lunchbox72703]

OK, i'm willing to concede that barthel looked better than mort, but give me this.  I know of two passes (of which I had to confirm in the paper today) that mort made that were dead on in the hands of his recievers, but were dropped.  And If I am correct, that would have put his total yardage over Barthels.  And although I did state that ROJO might be in trouble, I didn't exactly say he would be outta there though.

More importantly though, Mike Irwin, if you say ROJO is the best......and you're knowledge far outweighs mine, I happily say....COOL!

[TulsaHogFan]

By comparison Barthel was 5 of 8 for 85 yards. He was especially effective throwing to the tight ends.

This post right here made me a happy man.  I have ALWAYs felt we neglected the TE postition and now with great potential at the RB and HDN showing he will give the TE routes to run, we could be a very dangerous team.  Think about it, you now ACTUALLY have to cover the TE  (so thats one) two will be on Monk most likely (thats three) 4 rushing the line at least, thats 8 men, that leaves 3 men total to cover Hillis, Mcfadden, Baker and possibly another reciever. 

Those matchups look good otherwise they have to leave Monk in single man coverage or go to a zone. 

We could pick a defense apart with that.

[lunchbox72703]

I agree with Tulsa.