UTEP football starts tackling: Takeaways from coach Scotty Walden’s first scrimmage

The most predictable thing about UTEP’s first spring scrimmage under coach Scotty Walden was that he praised the energy afterward.

Friday’s two-hour scrimmage that capped the eighth of 15 spring practices was behind closed doors (well, closed fences at Glory Field), but per accounts afterward, the defense forced a string of turnovers, the offense ran the ball well and stood out in the two-minute drills and the universal feeling was the team improved.

Here are some takeaways gleaned from what players and Walden said afterwards.

UTEP players go through drills prior to their Friday scrimmage at Glory Field

Both sides have moments

There is a zero-sum element to intersquad scrimmages, when one side of the ball is doing well the other side is getting beat, so what a team wants to see is both the offense and defense have moments.

By all accounts that happened. The defense made the majority of the big plays, but the offense had moments, particularly in the two-minute drill that closed the practice.

“Coach talked about back and forth, offense and defense,” said receiver Trey Goodman, who was one of four players selected to talk to the media afterwards. “The Orange Swarm (defense) was making plays, pick-6s, fumble recoveries.

“We have guys in blue (offense) scoring breakaway touchdowns. It’s healthy competition, understanding the team doesn’t get better if just one side is dominating. The feeling of going back and forth gives us a good idea of how we’re going to look in these next couple of scrimmages leading up to the fall.”

Said Walden: “Not one side dominated. In the red-zone period, that was the most dominant the defense has been. Then in 2-minute, offense dominated the period with two touchdowns on two big explosive plays.

“That is the mark to me of a really good team, when there is back-and-forth, not one side dominating.”

UTEP…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/utep-football-starts-tackling-takeaways-191518443.html

Author : The El Paso Times

Publish date : 2024-04-05 19:15:18

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