Junior linebacker Dylan Layne said that he was proud of the young players who were fired up and flying around defensively, but he gave credit to defensive coordinator Cort Dennison for how the defense is designed.
“Coach Dennison is a mastermind; we probably have 40 calls in our call sheet. So when we’re all doing our job, doing it right, it can get pretty nasty,” Layne said. “The offense doesn’t know how to block us sometimes. It was really fun.”
Position battles
As any good spring camp comes, so do positional battles. The biggest one for the Vandals is at quarterback.
Sophomores Jack Wagner and Josifek were the focal point of that quarterback battle on Saturday.
“Everybody wants to know about the quarterback battle. I think you see Nick (Josifek) and Jack (Wagner) kind of separate themselves from the other two guys. I would imagine those guys would continue to get more reps as we continue with spring ball to see who’s really gonna win that job.”
Although neither player made clear headway throughout the scrimmage, Wagner did have a deep completion on a play-action pass to sophomore wide receiver Emmerson Cortez-Menjivar for nearly 60 yards to put them in the red zone. Wagner said that it was one of the Vandals’ longer play-action plays and that he liked his matchup. When he saw the safety come down to cover an in-breaking route he knew he was going to throw it to Cortez-Menjivar and fired.
As for the quarterback room, Wagner said that they have to hold themselves accountable for the offensive struggles.
“I know I need to play better, I know I can make the right calls. But, it starts with us getting people in the right position,” Wagner said. “So I think we gotta hold ourselves accountable first and come more prepared. Defense came to play and we kinda got a little too anxious and it took a…
Source link : https://www.lmtribune.com/sports/defense-shines-in-uis-first-spring-scrimmage-19166700
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Publish date : 2025-04-06 12:16:00
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