Deacons Hold Scrimmage at BB&T Field

4/10/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football

April 10, 2010

Jimmy Newman kicked field goals of 52 and 36 yards and Skylar Jones threw a 10-yard scoring pass to Marshall Williams to highlight Wake Forest's scrimmage Saturday morning at BB&T Field.

The Demon Deacons scrimmaged for just over an hour with four different quarterbacks taking turns at running the offense. Jones saw perhaps the greatest amount of time at quarterback, leading four offensive possessions. Three other quarterbacks, including Turner Faulk, Patrick Thompson and converted cornerback D.J. Jones, each led two drives.

"We competed really hard today," said head coach Jim Grobe. "I thought our energy was better. I think we'll find several guys improved today. I liked the energy we had. Our quarterbacks seemed a little calmer today, made some throws. We missed some reads and that's going to happen because we're using so many kids right now. I thought our offensive line actually gave the quarterbacks a chance from time to time to do some things. We hadn't been doing that very well. Defensively, we're rolling a lot of guys in, we've changed some guys position-wise. We've changed a lot of guys position-wise this spring. But overall, I thought we had a good scrimmage."

Jones completed six of seven passes for 64 yards including a 10-yard scoring pass to Marshall Williams. Jones rolled out and faked a run, drawing the safety to leave Williams all alone in the end zone.

Faulk completed all three of his pass attempts for 26 yards while Jones connected on two of six attempts for 27 yards. Thompson missed on both of his pass attempts.

Quarterback Ted Stachitas missed the scrimmage with a continuing hamstring injury while Brendan Cross was sidelined after suffering a slight concussion in practice on Thursday.

"Ted has been down basically all spring and Brendan Cross has a slight concussion right now," said Grobe. "We were afraid if we didn't put another guy at quarterback we might come over here and only scrimmage for five minutes. DJ was starting to compete pretty good for us at cornerback. So putting him at quarterback, we made that decision yesterday. The offensive line has been a disappointment as far as durability. We moved Antonio Ford and Bryson Dunmeyer over (to the offensive line) yesterday. We made three moves yesterday and tried to coach them yesterday afternoon in a meting. Where we'll go from there, I couldn't tell you."

The Deacons had nine different players carry the ball from scrimmage. Fullback Tommy Bohanon had three carries for 30 yards and also had a nine-yard reception. Jones led the way with 11 carries and netted 34 yards, the majority coming on a 16-yard carry. Josh Adams carried twice for 15 yards, Willie Dixon had six carries and netted one yard while Brandon Pendergrass finished with 20 yards on four carries. Fullback Roger Khouri had 10 yards on two carries.

Grobe was pleased with the way the quarterbacks executed the option.

"I think we'll feel like we missed some reads," said Grobe. "I thought our quarterbacks could have carried the ball more today. But that's probably our fault, if there's ever any indecision, we want the ball handed off.

"We calmed our defense down a little bit. The problem you get into in the spring is your defense can dial up every defense known to man because they don't have to worry about if you hit a home run on them. We tried to limit the defense and I thought our offensive line played a bit better today. We got a chance to look at our quarterbacks for a change. The last week and a half our offensive line has been so shaky we hadn't been able to evaluate our quarterbacks. I actually thought our snaps were a bit better today. We've been going about 50-50, half the time our quarterback has to be more of a shortstop than a quarterback. I thought Sky really looked settled, he looked more like a quarterback than just an athlete. Turner Faulk did some good things today. All those guys had some moments. It's hard to be consistent when you're using as many guys at quarterback but we don't have to name a guy today so we have time to figure it out."

Grobe also expressed his pleasure with the kicking of sophomore Jimmy Newman. Newman connected on field goal tries of 52 and 36 yards while missing from 53 and 43 yards. He also got off a 62-yard punt during a special teams segment.

"Jimmy has all the potential," said Grobe. "He reminds me a lot of Sam (Swank) and that's saying a lot. He gets good height on his field goals and it's hard to block his field goals. He's got the ability to be a real good kicker for us. He probably has more upside than Sam as a punter. He's got a little more pop in his leg than Sam. He's not very consistent right now. He's hitting more good balls on kicks than he hits bad and his punts, he's probably more consistent than Shane (Popham) was last fall. I like where we are with Jimmy right now."

Grobe and his staff have three practice sessions remaining in the spring, concluding with next Saturday's spring game at BB&T Field.

"We're still in the `practice-hard and get-better' mode," said Grobe. "Sometimes when you get to the end of spring, if you have a lot of veteran players, the tendency is to slow things down. But for us, we're still full speed ahead. We've got three good practices left in us. We may still have some positions where we may want to look at a guy at a different spot. That's why today we took a look at DJ Jones at quarterback, just because there's no reason not to do that in the spring."