I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils; beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
- William Wordsworth, Poet
This iteration of the spring game recap series includes notes from spring games that occurred between April 19 and 25.
These teams include: USF, CMU, IU, Baylor, ISU, ULLaF, Minnesota, UMass, ULM, Maryland, PSU, UTSA, UB, JMU (cancelled), ND & UNLV.
You can find the previous version here:
One thing to note is that the quality of intel coming out of these games highly varies per program. Some places have a lot of coverage, and some don’t. And even when intel is available, some coaches use these games primarily to see what young players are capable of, whereas others prefer to treat it like a pre-season game which is more informative.
Nonetheless, I’ve found that throughout the years there is always at least one interesting nugget that turns out to be useful from these spring game reports.
Also, now that we can embed tweets into Substack articles again these are going to be so much better going forward. Cheers.
USF
Composition of OFF:
One of my early takeaways this season was their heavy use of tight ends as well as the running backs out of the backfield. The tight ends were used heavily and were also targeted much more often than in the past and they seem to be running a more expansive route tree than in the past. There were several long receptions by the tight ends and a couple more that were nearly catches that they weren’t able to come down with.
QB:
The quarterbacks looked solid overall, they had a couple that were close to being picked off, but were mostly deflections or tipped balls and only one seemed to be a poorly thrown ball, which was by Luke Kromenhoek, although it’s hard to know if it was truly on him or if it was a poorly run route or something like that. There were not many badly missed passes besides that one and one screen by Michael Van Buren that was poorly thrown to Bryson Rodgers.
RB:
The running backs, which were used out of the backfield were used as a check down but also ran some routes out of the backfield, which we didn’t see very often under the previous regime. I would say that the running backs room was probably the biggest surprise of the spring game and they impressed me more than I had expected going in. They all seemed to run hard and despite the plays being called dead rather early, I liked what I saw out of them. Brian Hartline seemingly agreed in his post-game presser saying that they’re both talented and deep within that room and he also said the best thing he saw from this group was in pass protection.
WR:
The wide receivers play was mostly a mixed bag and a couple were either out or very limited. Arhmad Branch and Mudia Reuben only saw a few possessions and I don’t believe that I saw Armani Winfield play at all. I also didn’t notice Jeyquan Smith at all, either. They seemingly ran good routes and are impressive physically, but it seemed like the timing wasn’t quite there yet with their quarterbacks, which makes some sense.
OL:
Overall, it was hard to take away a lot from the offensive line group as they were seemingly jumbled and haven’t had much time to gel, although there weren’t a ton of sacks and even some of those probably could have been shed within a true game scenario. All three quarterbacks that saw the field also used their legs a bunch when plays broke down and they all seemingly can both move the pocket and run when necessary. Van Buren specifically seems to be the most dual-threat of the bunch and moves well once he’s in open space.
Central Michigan
Scoring notes:
Central Michigan's offense scored three touchdowns, highlighted by a 32-yard pass from quarterback Marcus Beamon to running back Trav Moore, a 17-yard touchdown run by Geno Seets, and an explosive eight-yard touchdown run by John Stowers. Stowers electrified the fans with the game's most memorable moment, attempting to leap over a defender on a rushing attempt.
QB:
Angel Flores, Marcus Beamon, Daniel Gomez, and Geno Seets all saw action at quarterback for the Chippewas.
Quarterback Jadyn Glasser didn’t play as he continues to be non-contact in his rehab from surgery.
RB:
Trav Moore is the real deal