Sunday, March 18, 2007
Thoughts from Scrimmage
So I attended the Green/White Scrimmage on Saturday with my family. Here are some random thoughts I had while viewing the scrimmage....
The Coaches
Per the Stallions website, Head Coach Kevin Gade is a local boy who played football at MacMurray College. It looked like he had a pretty good handle on the players yesterday at the scrimmage. All of the coaches seemed to be pretty engaged with the players. The players seemed to be responding to the coaches' instruction and guidance. The staff has some local members that Springfield area fans may know about (Derrick Leonard, Jim Dodd) and a good mix of experience in the rest of the staff....for more information on the coaching staff see the Coaching staff link to the Stallions web page over on the side bar.
The Team
Unfortunately, no information was given out at the scrimmage yesterday concerning the players. So unless you were family or friends of the players you really didn't know much about the guys running around in green and white shirts down on the field. It would have been nice to have a handout of some sort giving some background on the players. From reading on the Stallions' website, yesterday was the last practice before final cuts. I guess final cuts were made yesterday after the scrimmage. You could tell that the players were giving extra effort to try and impress the coaches. The Stallions definitely are going to have some speed and athleticism on both sides of the football. There were some flashes of brilliance on the field yesterday.
QB's
Some of the early quarterback play was encouraging...most of the early passes were right on the money with the quarterbacks showing good reads and touch on the ball. But later in the scrimmage the defense stepped things up a little and the quarterbacks had a harder time being effective. Especially the quarterback for the white team. He showed some good speed and athleticism early...but had trouble with his touch on the deep ball later in the game. He's also going to need to learn that you can't hold on to the ball so long in indoor football. Either pass immediately or take off running. With his speed, he shouldn't have trouble creating space for himself. The green team quarterback had some really good passes early....especially across the middle through the defense. He seemed to have pretty good defensive reads most of the game and showed some quickness and agility when flushed out of the pocket.
RB
The running game showed some promise yesterday. I was really impressed with #4 for the green team. He had one really good run down by the goal-line towards the middle of the game. He cut left off the snap only to be met by a wall of defenders. He was able to switch back to the right almost immediately breaking a couple of tackles and running it in for the TD. He seems like a pretty tough nosed back who can hold on to the ball. He got smacked good a couple of times and never lost the ball from what I can remember. #25 (or26...can't remember) for the White team had some pretty good runs with the ball too.
Rec
You can tell it's early in the season because the QB's and receivers weren't really in sync yet. But the Stallions do seem to show some promise at the receiver position. For the most part, the receivers seemed to run pretty good routes. A couple of times the QB's put the passes on the hands of the receivers but the receivers couldn't come up with the ball. There were some good runs after the catch. #9 for the green team had one catch along the sideline and then proceeded to break the ankles of his defender with a fake to the left/run to the right that was so good that even people in the audience let out an audible "ohhhhhh"...
OL/DL
The Stallions definitely have some size and quickness on the Offensive and Defensive lines. The O-Lines only had a couple of breakdowns in protection from what I saw. More from the white team than the green team.
The D-Lines showed some pretty good pass penetration and run coverage throughout the game. The white team had some really good stops late in the game when the green team got down by the goal line. One especially good play was a 3rd down run play where #56 on the white team stuffed a run up the gut.
Special Teams
Late in the game the coaches ran some special team drills. Kickoff plays were practiced. The Special Teams game still needs some work. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Overall the scrimmage showed that the Stallions are going to be a fun team to watch. They look like they're going to be putting a pretty exciting product on the field. I'm looking forward to the first Home game on April 7th.
The PCCC
The Stallions will be playing their home games at Midwest Technical Institute Field at the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Downtown Springfield. According to my sources, the field had just been laid out that morning. It still bore the insignia of a previous league. The walls for the field had not been put up yet. We sat at mezzanine level in one end zone with most of the other fans in attendance. I would guess the overall attendance for the scrimmage to be in the 100-200 range. Mostly friends and family of the players from what I saw. The overall view from the end zone mezzanine level is pretty good with the exception that you can't really see the end zone that is beneath you. Preferred seating is definitely going to be on the side mezzanines or down on the floor. Ticket prices from what little I've seen appear to be reasonable. Since this is the first year for Stallions Football I would assume that good tickets for games shouldn't be hard to come by.
The Coaches
Per the Stallions website, Head Coach Kevin Gade is a local boy who played football at MacMurray College. It looked like he had a pretty good handle on the players yesterday at the scrimmage. All of the coaches seemed to be pretty engaged with the players. The players seemed to be responding to the coaches' instruction and guidance. The staff has some local members that Springfield area fans may know about (Derrick Leonard, Jim Dodd) and a good mix of experience in the rest of the staff....for more information on the coaching staff see the Coaching staff link to the Stallions web page over on the side bar.
The Team
Unfortunately, no information was given out at the scrimmage yesterday concerning the players. So unless you were family or friends of the players you really didn't know much about the guys running around in green and white shirts down on the field. It would have been nice to have a handout of some sort giving some background on the players. From reading on the Stallions' website, yesterday was the last practice before final cuts. I guess final cuts were made yesterday after the scrimmage. You could tell that the players were giving extra effort to try and impress the coaches. The Stallions definitely are going to have some speed and athleticism on both sides of the football. There were some flashes of brilliance on the field yesterday.
QB's
Some of the early quarterback play was encouraging...most of the early passes were right on the money with the quarterbacks showing good reads and touch on the ball. But later in the scrimmage the defense stepped things up a little and the quarterbacks had a harder time being effective. Especially the quarterback for the white team. He showed some good speed and athleticism early...but had trouble with his touch on the deep ball later in the game. He's also going to need to learn that you can't hold on to the ball so long in indoor football. Either pass immediately or take off running. With his speed, he shouldn't have trouble creating space for himself. The green team quarterback had some really good passes early....especially across the middle through the defense. He seemed to have pretty good defensive reads most of the game and showed some quickness and agility when flushed out of the pocket.
RB
The running game showed some promise yesterday. I was really impressed with #4 for the green team. He had one really good run down by the goal-line towards the middle of the game. He cut left off the snap only to be met by a wall of defenders. He was able to switch back to the right almost immediately breaking a couple of tackles and running it in for the TD. He seems like a pretty tough nosed back who can hold on to the ball. He got smacked good a couple of times and never lost the ball from what I can remember. #25 (or26...can't remember) for the White team had some pretty good runs with the ball too.
Rec
You can tell it's early in the season because the QB's and receivers weren't really in sync yet. But the Stallions do seem to show some promise at the receiver position. For the most part, the receivers seemed to run pretty good routes. A couple of times the QB's put the passes on the hands of the receivers but the receivers couldn't come up with the ball. There were some good runs after the catch. #9 for the green team had one catch along the sideline and then proceeded to break the ankles of his defender with a fake to the left/run to the right that was so good that even people in the audience let out an audible "ohhhhhh"...
OL/DL
The Stallions definitely have some size and quickness on the Offensive and Defensive lines. The O-Lines only had a couple of breakdowns in protection from what I saw. More from the white team than the green team.
The D-Lines showed some pretty good pass penetration and run coverage throughout the game. The white team had some really good stops late in the game when the green team got down by the goal line. One especially good play was a 3rd down run play where #56 on the white team stuffed a run up the gut.
Special Teams
Late in the game the coaches ran some special team drills. Kickoff plays were practiced. The Special Teams game still needs some work. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Overall the scrimmage showed that the Stallions are going to be a fun team to watch. They look like they're going to be putting a pretty exciting product on the field. I'm looking forward to the first Home game on April 7th.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
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