CSU Rams evaluate progress in first scrimmage

After just five days of fall workouts, the Colorado State football team moved inside Canvas Stadium for their first scrimmage of camp Wednesday.

For head coach Jay Norvell, his staff, and the players, their first time being in game situations since their spring game was mostly about evaluating where the team is – both how far it has come since opening camp and what it needs work on.

“We have a lot of players that we haven’t seen live very much,” Norvell said. “We wanted to see them. They have done a lot of things in practice pretty well. But it is kind of like Mike Tyson. Everyone has a plan to lay a hit. We found some things out about some guys in really competitive situations. We’ve got a lot of decisions to make at our skill positions. We have a lot of young players that are really talented. A lot of kids did some good things today. We have a lot of decisions to make before we solidify our top units.”

Wednesday’s scrimmage saw three different groups go against each other – ones, twos and threes.

All three groups made some plays, both offensively and defensively, in a range of situations from starting at the goal-line with 100 yards to go, to two-minute drills to goal-line situations. Kickers and punters also got in some work.

“We practice a certain way and when we scrimmage, it’s a different situation,” Norvell said. “We’ve got a lot of things to clean up. It was the first time we’ve had officials out there. We are trying to put some guys in some situations so a lot of what we did wasn’t necessarily to have good plays offensively and defensively. It was to see how certain players react. We have a lot of personnel decisions to make here in the next two weeks. A lot of these players, we’ve never had before so we don’t really know what they are until we get them in a live situation. I thought it was good. We got about 30 more plays than I was anticipating getting. But we needed a good, long, old-fashioned scrimmage today.”

No. 1 quarterback freshman transfer Clay Millen had some bright moments, especially near the end of the scrimmage when the team was working on two-minute drills.

He completed a long pass to senior Ty McCulloch and then another pass to freshman Louis Brown to get the team down to the 7-yard line.

“It was good to get out there and actually have a live scrimmage-like thing,” Millen said. “The last time we had that was the spring game. We try to take what we do in practice and put it in the scrimmage. I thought we had some good stuff today. I thought we had some stuff that we obviously need to work on. I am excited and it was good.”

With a lot of depth at the skill positions, which Norvell alluded to, Millen said he feels good about where the offense is at this point.

Not only does it feature players who were on the team last year, but also transfers and freshmen who are already contributing.

“Everyone doesn’t always see every single day in practice,” Millen said. “Like the past two days, offense has played really well. Today, the defense came out hot and they played well too. Especially with the young guys that have just come in, they have done a really good job. We are excited about them. The offensive line is doing well and the receivers. We are a group now so I am excited about that.

The defense made itself known during the scrimmage as well, stopping runs, getting to Millen and knocking down passes in the end zone.

Norvell called it cliche, but was in agreement that the defense is a little ahead of the offense at this point.

“I believe we executed at a high level today,” fifth-year senior defensive back Tywan Francis said. “Twos and ones and threes, we all competed at a high level today. We piggybacked off each other and played with good energy.”

As far as evaluating where the defense is at this point in camp, Francis is positive about where the unit is right now.

There is more returning experience on the defense, which is one factor for it being a step ahead of the offense at this point.

Francis knows there is still plenty of work to be done before the team’s season opener Sept. 3 at Michigan.

“We had a good day defensively,” Francis said. “We did a lot of good things on film. We executed. We can’t be complacent. We made some mistakes on film. We just have to go in there and correct them.”

After five more days of practice beginning Friday, the Rams will have another evaluation opportunity at their second scrimmage on Aug. 17.