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2005 Red vs. White Spring Game
AKA the Funnel Cake Game “Overall, I am happy with where we're at. We've got a lot of work to do to become a real good football team, but I think we've made progress this spring.” Coach Ralph Friedgen
Overall:
Ah the annual Spring Red-White scrimmage, a taste of football during the most football barren time of the year. A sign that summer and two a days are just around the corner. This year’s Red-White game was arguably the biggest Red-White game under the tutelage of Head Coach Ralph Friedgen with many questions needed to be addressed and depth charts to be ironed out. Maryland is looking to replace such key personnel as the 12th overall draft pick Shawn Merriman, WR and special teams guru Steve Suter, DB extraordinaire Dominique Foxworth, and the all time leading scorer Nick Novak.
Game Summary:
Does anyone really care? Well I kind of did because Justin and I had bet Chris and J a funnel cake on the first half score. We took red, and they took a long walk up the stairs to get us a funnel cake. So the final score was Red 21- White-10. Being that many players played for both teams that doesn’t really tell us much. What we will look at though are some of the position highlights. That will give us a better understanding of what did come out of the Red/White game.
QB’s- Is there really another position on the field whose situation scares us more? Well not me. Yes we have questions at running back also, but I am kind of looking forward to seeing which back wins the job, but at QB, I just shutter. Joel Statham-The field general of the victorious Red. Statham was 14-26 (54%) with 1 TD and 1 interception. Not terrible stats, and Joel didn’t exactly have the best marquee WR’s. However with that being said there were several catches I witnessed that were caught more so because of the WR than the QB if you know what I mean. Jeremy Navarre’s TD catch was a shining example. Overall a solid performance for Joel, but certainly not a “This is my job until someone pry’s it out of my cold dead hands” performance. Sam Hollenbach- Sam got the benefit of the starting WR’s but also went against the better secondaries. Sam led a slow moving offense up and down the field and finished 16-26 (62%) with 1 TD and 0 interceptions. Though his team lost by 11 you could give the QB edge to him slightly. But I wouldn’t claim the spring game lost or won any QB their job.
RB’s- It is true that we have lost Josh Allen for the year, but this position doesn’t seem to worry me that much. We always seem to find someone to run the ball and do at least and adequate job at it. With the QB situation going in this year as is, it would be nice to have a solid run game to take off some pressure for whoever leads the offense. The spring game was a great chance for all up and comers to show there stuff and this is what they did. Mario Merrills- Mario got 12 carries on the day (11 for white, 1 for red). He gained 63 yards for a 5.25 average which is pretty good. His long was 14 yards. Keon Lattimore- Keon had a team high 15 carries (10 for red, 5 for white). Gained 59 yards and averaged 3.93 a carry. He also scored 2 TD’s on the day to lead all players and had an 11 yard carry. Lattimore though young look great in the game and probably benefited most by the red-white scrimmage. Lance Ball- The Baller got 10 touches for the Red’s and 4 for the whites. He gained 37 yards and averaged 2.64 yards per carry. His best carry went for 7 yards which is also the same length as his total yards lost. Again the RB’s preformed adequately. I had no worries about this position before the game and nothing changed to make me worry afterwards. I think what we are going to see is a committee of Merrills and Lattimore. I think Lattimore has more upside, but I usually am biased to the younger ones. Overall the backs looked good.
WR’s- I’ll throw in TE’s into this as well. I liked what I saw from our WR’s. There were a lot of solid catches made. It was unfortunate that some of the catches had to be spectacular as opposed to routine, but a catch is a catch and you can’t blame the WR’s for where the QB puts the ball. I got to see a lot of separation on offense and am encouraged by our depth at this position, one which has not been overachieving lately. Vernon Davis- What a beast. Looked as good as ever. 6 catches 68 yards to lead all WR’s (even though he is a TE). Had a long of 23. No TD’s for the big man, but opposing teams are going to know his number when they play Maryland, you can guarantee that. Jo Jo Walker- Walker had 4 catches for 29 yards including but not limited to a TD on a 12 yard pass from Hollenbach. Jo Jo also returned 2 punts for 28 yards, and 2 kicks for 47 yards. Looks like Walker will be competing with Josh Wilson for special teams time. Danny Melendez- Melendez lead the Red’s in catches. His longest catch was only 15 yards, but he was consistent all day. 5 grabs for 47 yards. Melendez made a strong push for playing time at WR. Greg Powell- I had no idea who Greg Powell was and if someone bet me 50$ that there was a Greg Powell on our roster I most likely would be down some cash. Never the less he was second on the Red team with 4 catches, he lead the Red’s with 57 yards and picked up 29 on one play. I didn’t know his name then, but I know it now, and expect to hear it more often if he can duplicate his spring game appearance. Derrick Fenner- Fenner saw some time on the white squad and pulled down 3 catches for 23 yards. Nothing spectacular on his part. Drew Weatherly- Drew had 2 catches for 24 yards and a long of 15. Jeremy Navarre- I think we are going to really like this kid. He is from Harford County (much like Andrew and Megan now) and graduated early to enter Maryland in the Spring of 2005. He only had one catch for 6 yards but it was a TD and a grab that was worthy of an upper classman, not some kid who is going to the prom next year. Statham gets a TD on the play, but I say it was all Navarre’s doing. A good start for the youngest player on the field (most likely, I am not going to stop and verify that).
Defense- I’ll admit, the Defense really gets screwed in my reviews. The offense gets broken down by position while the “D” (which has been the heart and sole of the Terps for so long) gets tossed into one big combined category. But hey, at least they aren’t Offensive Lineman who I really don’t bother with. It’s not that the O line isn’t important, my God we certainly learned that last year, it is just that it is easier to do a review with the stats sheet in front of me and there just isn’t much to go on for the O line. Anyway, defense has never been a worry for the Terps, we can hang in with the best of them (assuming we don’t turn the ball over and leave our defense on the field all game and have them get blown out). But the loss of All Galaxy Player Shawn Merriman and senior Dominique Foxworth, things could be more difficult this year. Here is how they played for the red. JJ Justice- JJ (whose is at least twice as good as our J who only gets one letter) had a busy day. JJ had 13 tackles 8 of which were solo. Not sure if it is good or not to have a secondary lead the team in tackles (by a lot) but lead he did. David Holloway- David “greatest sack recorder in EA Sports NCAA Football 2005 history” had 8 tackles on the day with one tackle for a loss. Wesley Jefferson- Jefferson put up the exact same numbers as Holloway recording 7 solo’s and an assist for a total of 8 tackles. He also had one tackle for a loss. Conrad Bolston- Bolston had a solid day with 5 tackles 2 of which were for a loss. Chima Amadi- Though he only had one tackle he lead all defenders with an interception returned for 14 yards.
Over on the white team: Chase Bullock- Chase lead the white team with 8 tackles. He also had one tackle for a loss. Jeris Smith- Jeris had 5 tackles to come in second on the white squad. 3 solo and 2 assists. Carlos Feliciano, Christian Varner, and Chris Williams all chipped in for 4 tackles each.
No one else on the White squad had more than 3 tackles.
Special Teams- One area that has not been lacking in the Ralph Friedgen era has been special teams. Though Podlesh returns, gone are return specialist Steve Suter, and the kicker and Nickname Hall of Famer Nick “Das Boot” Novack. If the Terps want to get back to a bowl game in 2005-06 then someone on the special teams side is going to have to step it up. Adam Podlesh- No suspense here Podlesh is going to be our punter. In fact he punted for both teams in the Red-White game. Podlesh punted a total of 8 times and averaged roughly 40 yards a kick, not eye popping but the weather conditions were less than ideal for the spring game. Podlesh did manage one inside the 20 (which almost cost me my funnel cake on a stupid double or nothing bet) and had a long of 50 yards. Overall about what you would expect out of our rock solid punter. Obi Egekeze- The man who is going to wreck havoc on spell checkers everywhere if he wins the job, had the good fortune of playing on the team that actually got to attempt field goals. The first one was a 49 yarder which he missed, but not by much. The second one was a 31 yard attempt which Obi Won easily made. He also added on a PAT to finish the day with 4 points. Not bad, not great. Not sure how that performance answers any kicking questions Fridge may have. Dan Ennis- Ennis the ….. as mentioned above never even got a chance at a FG attempt. Can’t say it was his fault, so his performance really didn’t show anyone anything. He was perfect on PATS going 3-3 but that isn’t much to write home about for a D-1 kicker. Josh Wilson- Who is competing with Jo Jo Walker (who was mentioned under WR’s) had a great day returning kicks. Josh took back 2 kick offs a total of 55 yards with one being a 40 yard return. Josh also got 2 punts that he took back 26, the longest of which was 19.
Game MVP:
From watching the game from my vantage point which I can’t claim was from an Eagle eye. The player that I thought had the best all around game was Keon Lattimore. He had 2 TD’s and looked good in every play he ran. I think he made the biggest impact in the spring game and I am giving him the D-7 Tailgate MVP award (which is a flip cup, on top of a Bud Light Can on top of a fresh grilled breakfast sandwich which is on top of a football shaped chocolate cake).
Extra Points: So there you have it. A cliff notes version of the 2005 Spring Game. Only one area really jumped out and that was attendance. If recruits care about attendance at Spring games we are screwed. Official U of Md attendance was 4,153, just 31,000 behind Va. Tech. In our defense though the weather sucked, the O’s and Nat’s were in town, and the Wizards had their first home playoff game since a scrappy 7-8 Lithuania named George prowled the lane!
That’s it for the Spring wrap up, the next one of these I do will be about live action. Till then GO TERPS!!
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