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April 9, 2005
OXFORD, Ohio--With the spring football season already down to its final week, Miami University's football team strapped on the pads for the second of three spring scrimmages Saturday afternoon at Yager Stadium. With both the offense and defense showing continued improvement, the RedHawks have three more practices before closing out the spring season with next Friday's annual Spring Game.
"We're progressing on both sides of the ball, though the offense may be a little slower due to the number of starters out with injuries," head coach Shane Montgomery said. "We've got some more work to do in this final week of spring practice, but we're definitely seeing some guys emerge on both sides of the ball."
After starting slow in the first spring scrimmage last Saturday, Miami's defense took it to the offense early on, restricting the offensive unit to just one 50-yard Todd Soderquist field goal over the first seven series. During that same stretch, junior Frank Wiwo came up with a pair of big plays, notching a quarterback sack off a corner blitz on third down and later batting down a Mike Kokal pass on fourth-and-short. The defense also came up with an interception off a tipped pass in the early going.
After giving up a short drive to the first-team offense that resulted in Soderquist's 50-yarder, the defense produced turnovers on back-to-back drives. Redshirt freshman Robbie Wilson, who was in on several pass break-ups, came up with an interception of a Kokal pass following the field goal. Freshman Jared Elliott finally got the offense into the redzone with a 25-yard completion to fellow freshman Sean McVay and a 15-yard run by Austin Sykes, but senior Ryan Redd stepped in front of an Elliott pass in the endzone to end the threat.
"The defense is really progressing well," Montgomery said. "The starting unit has been largely intact for the entire spring, and they have a lot of experience. We're really focused on bringing along some of the younger guys, who have a great group of seniors to learn from. There is a lot of potential among our class of redshirt freshmen, and it's exciting to see them getting better with every practice."
After struggling early on, the offense finally managed to sway the momentum midway through the scrimmage. Senior quarterback Josh Betts hooked up with sophomore Patrick O'Bryan and a 20-yard hook-up and sophomore Brandon Murphy later busted off a 15-yard touchdown run.
Kokal added his first touchdown two possessions later with help from the tight ends, connecting with freshman Tom Crabtree on a 35-yard completion inside the five-yard line and later hitting senior Dan Tyler on a three-yard touchdown pass.
Betts would add one more touchdown on the afternoon, when he hooked up with junior R.J. Corbin on a 15-yard completion.
"It's been a challenging spring for the quarterbacks, but they're adjusting," Montgomery said. "It's tough having to work at getting on the same page as a new group of wide receivers when you're playing against such a tough defense. Josh has had a pretty good spring so far, and it helps that we were able to get Ryan Busing and Josh Williams back out there today.
"Mike is getting more comfortable with the offense and is now more able to focus on learning recognize the defense and make the right reads. Jared is doing pretty well, but he's having to both learn the offense and learn to recognize the defense at the same time. They're all getting better with repetition, especially Mike and Jared."
Along with juniors Ryan Busing and Josh Williams, who were not available for last week's scrimmage, Miami also got back senior defensive lineman Jarrod Rich. Unfortunately, running backs Akim Lannaman and Jimmy Calhoun were both unavailable, as well as senior defensive end Marcus Johnson. None of the injuries are viewed as serious.
"We're still missing 4-5 starters on the offensive side of the ball, which makes it difficult for the guys who are having to fill in and really getting thrown in the fire," Montgomery said. "Right now we're really looking for consistency, which is tough to find when people are out. The good thing is that I've seen a lot of improvement from these younger guys over the past five or six practices, on the offensive line, and that's promising."
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