Saturday, March 03, 2007

Sights and sounds from the spring scrimmage

Made it out to the Cal Poly football team's scrimmage at Alex G. Spanos Stadium on Saturday morning.
Stadium looked good. The renovation looks like it's been completed, finally.
The program's last two Buck Buchanan award winners, Kyle Shotwell and Chris Gocong of the Philadelphia Eagles, were on hand and said they were healthy and appeared to be in good shape. The team, however, looked young and a little rough around the edges.
Because many of the first-teamers were on the sideline watching, including star running back James Noble and wide receiver Ramses Barden, many of the Mustangs who were competing were redshirt freshmen and newcomers to their position. Defensive end Ryan Shotwell, for example, was working out at linebacker. Running back Fred Hives II has been converted to linebacker as well.
Cal Poly's offense fumbled a lot, dropped some passes and botched a number of option pitches, which I guess could be expected with so many newcomers handling the ball.
Jonathan Dally and Matt Brennan split reps at quarterback and it appears the position is wide open. A starter probably won't be determined until the fall. I'm working on a story on the quarterback competition for Tuesday's paper.
The play of the day was a 30-plus-yard touchdown scamper by Scottie Cordier, who is listed as a defensive back but has obviously switched positions as well.
And that triple option rumor? It appears it's just a rumor. Cal Poly is working in some triple-option plays, but it appears the offense is still of the spread-option variety. At least for now, while Noble and Ryan Mole (who doesn't transfer in until this summer) aren't in the backfield.
For the most part, it was a typical spring scrimmage. Sloppy but productive for the young players. The Spring Game is tentatively scheduled for 10 a.m. on Sunday, March 10, at the stadium.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Brian for the update. Keep up the blog topics!

Brandon in California said...

I look forward to each football season. But, each year I also wonder how much longer D-IAA be viable for Cal Poly.

The Great West has been affected by schools dropping the sport (St Mary's) or changing conferences (N. Colorado). And right now it seems it is just a matter of time before the Dakota schools jump to another conference.

If the Great West fails for lack of membership Poly will be challenged with filling its schedule each year. Further, as a fan of the sport it becomes an increasing challenge to remain interested when opponents are irregularly scheduled and have little name recognition.

My question to anyone with information.... are there any west coast schools actively entertaining a new D-IAA football program? Or, is Poly thinking/considering going independant when/if the GWC fails, or dropping football, or moving up to D-IA status?

Anonymous said...

I think Farley has a good point, one I have been pondering the last couple of years. Will Humbolt and USD move up, will Santa Clara bring back football...how about UCSB? If none of this happens should Poly look to become 1-a? And join the Wac? Viability of the program is certainly dependant on scheduling and cost.