Colorado University Athletics
CU Heads Off for Spring Break After 83 Play Scrum
March 21, 2014 | Football
BOULDER -- Friday marked the first day of spring and the last day of classes before spring break, and the University of Colorado football team is nearly halfway through with its 2014 spring practices, completing an 83-play scrimmage in a little over an hour prior to the team scattering in different directions.
Unlike last week's mini-scrimmage which took place on just one half of the field, Friday's run included possessions starting all over the field, from the offenses own 1-yard line and the 20- and 8-yard lines in the red zone.
"Overall, I thought both sides did well," head football coach Mike MacIntyre said. "The first scrimmage, I thought the offense dominated, but this one the offense got off the goal line a few times, but the defense also stopped drives. The defense did better in the red zone today and they played harder and more aggressive. When you're the head coach, you want to see both sides do well, when you're on offense or defense, you just care about your guys. I was pleased with our kicking and field goals and they worked hard and we got a lot done."
The scrimmage featured 16 total possessions, with the offense scoring four touchdowns and a field goal; the defense technically had a safety when the ball was snapped out of the end zone from the 5-yard line, similar to the first play in last month's Super Bowl. There were 67 plays from scrimmage (43 pass plays, 24 rushes) and 16 special teams kicks (kickoffs, punts and placements).
Sophomore quarterback Sefo Liufau threw all four touchdown passes and to four different receivers: redshirt freshmen snared two Bryce Bobo (covering 51 yards) and Phillip Lindsay (22 yards), with senior Wes Christensen (8 yards) and sophomore Sean Irwin (10 yards) making the other pair. The other score during the session was a 31-yard field goal by redshirt frosh Chris Graham.
The defense, which allowed the offense to convert 12-of-17 third downs last week, clamped down this time around, allowing only four makes in 16 tries (and zip for two on fourth downs as well). It also had seven quarterback sacks, two each from sophomore Addison Gillam and redshirt frosh Derek McCartney, with sophomore safety Tedric Thompson making an interception and senior linebacker Woodson Greer blocking a field goal.
CU practiced seven times prior to its spring break, and will resume sessions on March 31 before the 15th and final one on April 14; the spring game is actually the next-to-last practice of the 15 allowed.
"In spring practice, it's good to have a week off," MacIntyre said. "There's no game coming up, they're getting to the middle of it and now they'll have some time off and want to hit each other again in a week. I talked to David Shaw (Stanford head coach), we've known each other for a while. They actually have three weeks off, and they've won a bunch of games."
So what is the plan for the next 10 days?
"First, I told them to do the right things on spring break," MacIntyre said. "They will. When they come back, they'll be fresh. I told them to run on spring break and do some core work. They can't just sit on the beach all day, they have to do some stuff to prepare to come back.
"When we get back, we will have some guys back who haven't been out here yet so we will do some different things. Offensively, we didn't have our big fullback (George Frazier) and we didn't have Christian Powell, and he's a power runner, so we'll do more emphasis on our heavy sets. Defensively, we'll have to prepare for those heavy sets, so we'll be doing that the first part after we return."
The quarterbacks have donned new jerseys for practices, light blue has been added to the gold they currently wear, but also some new verbiage.
"What we're doing with the gold jerseys ... we call it uncommon ... and we want uncommon effort" MacIntyre said. "We watch a guy on offense, defense and special teams, we want an excellent uncommon play. That's a great way to reward them, we give out the jersey in front of the whole team and we show the clips of how they earned it. If we can get everybody to do that, we can be exceptional. Each practice we'll reward for an uncommon play. If a guy gets it twice he can keep the jersey.
"Sefo has been very good," he continued. "The first couple of days, I noticed a zip on the ball, he was stronger, I think he was completely healthy, his body was fresh. He's throwing off his back foot better and rotating his hips better, so he has more zip on the ball. He'll be more accurate. He was good before, but he's gone out and done the things that Coach (Brian) Lindgren told him to do in the off season on his own and he's improved in that arep."
Liufau got off to a slow start Friday, completing just of his first eight throws, though two were dropped and a third stripped away, but then completed six straight including his four touchdown throws; he finished the day 9-of-17 for 145 yards. In the two spring scrums, he is now 16-of-28 for 253 yards and five scores with no interceptions, which works to a 191.97 passer rating.
"The offense started a little slow today but ended on a high note," he said. "I'm really impressed with the receivers, Bryce (Bobo) is a big guy and will get bigger and faster. Wesley Christensen also, he's put a lot of hard work in, he's made some big plays. The offensive line is doing really well, I'm happy with their progress. There's nothing bad going on, everybody knows what's going on play wise and doing what they're supposed to do.
"Coach Mac told us we'd have a gold jersey with a U and Uncommon as the name tag on the back end," he added. "The quarterbacks are wearing blue now. If coaches see a good play on film, they'll nominate you and Coach Mac will decide the winner and if you get the gold jersey ... and if you get it twice you get to keep it."
"Both Jordan (Gehrke) and Sefo have done well," MacIntyre added. "Sefo hasn't done anything to lose the job by any stretch. It's exciting to see that Jordan is right there on his heels, not that much separation. You better have a few guys who can play. Jordan has the ability to escape (the pass rush) and can make some plays and he's getting a good grasp of the offense. When Connor (Wood) left, I felt like 'uh oh,' and that opened the door for Jordan and he's taken advantage of it."
Gehrke was 11-of-16 for 128 yards, completing his first eight throws of the scrimmage; he, too, had two balls dropped. He has solid numbers in the two scrums, 23-of-33 for 286 yards (one TD, no picks), with his passer rating a solid 152.50.
"It's important for us to have a high completion ratio and a good run ratio," MacIntyre said. "We feel like that's how you move the football, keep other teams off the field and win football games. Defensively, they were doing more man today in the scrimmage. I let the coaches call everything, they have plans for each other, so they don't bring scripts out, they just go off what they see."
