Spartan Football: Headed towards the Spring game

Spartan football is grinding and greasing the rails, then grinding and greasing the rails again – just like every Spring session across the country - wax on, wax off. The trench players are pounding through the basics and fundamentals. QBs’ accuracy, situational and footwork drills are starting to distinguish a style and skills ranking. And some players are already clear playmakers and or have contribution expectations for the upcoming season.

Right at the midway point of the Spartan’s Spring session was scrimmage #2. It was, by all intents and purposes, what was to be expected – a continual evaluation, a building up of team-play chemistry and an overall situational awareness simulation. Both offense and defense showed progress, as they should, from the previous week’s scrimmage. The defense was tighter and lively again, especially with the first few series. The offense eventually had some good sequences moving and mixing plays on three scoring drives and was generally better than the previous week.

Also, during the week, the Spartan program was in full public relations mode with players visiting a local elementary school, the coaches holding court with their peers in the community (highlighting San Francisco 49er assistant coach, Katie Sowers), the team attending a domestic violence presentation given by rape survivor Brenda Tracy and also attending a gender equity panel. Overall, the Spartan’s PR program is great for the university and will help seed the next generation fan base as well. For the players, the personal benefits are hopefully profound and should remain with them well after football.

Onward to the Spring game on March 24^th, where we can start to gauge what’s coming in the Fall. When this is all moved out of the lab and into the street, the real dynamics will kick in and we can also start to ascertain the coaching staff’s chops in the real world or at least in the Mountain West real world.

The die-hard Spartan scrimmage #2 gallery.

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