Western Courier

Issue date: 3/31/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Jason Kaufman Senior quarterback Zack Wells scrambles away from a defender during Saturday's scrimmage.

The Leathernecks wrapped up their first full week of spring practice with a full-scale scrimmage Saturday morning. The workout consisted of 60 snaps in six-play sets with the first-team offense going against the first-team defense, and the twos and threes also working against each other.

The defense was able to force and recover a fumble on the first play of the scrimmage, but the offense recovered quickly when Matt Barr found Paul Anderson for a 45-yard gain two plays later that put it inside the 10-yard line. The defense kept the offense out of the end zone for the remainder of the drive.

Barr and senior Zack Wells split time quarterbacking the first unit, and alternated with redshirt freshman Justin Brown, who also split time at No. 2 with Wells.

The offense was held without a first down on five of the next six sets, but came alive late, scoring twice on the last two drives. Newcomer Lito Senatus caught a 40-yard touchdown pass from Wells, followed immediately by a 30-yard reception on the opposite side of the field on the next play. On the following drive, starting at the 20-yard line, Anderson's fourth catch in as many attempts set up a 7-yard touchdown run by a diving Dre Gibbs.

On the day, the defense forced two fumbles and recovered three, tallied four sacks and nine tackles for loss. With the exception of three balls caught downfield, a majority of the offense came on the ground or from a short, controlled passing game, limiting opportunities for interceptions.

"I saw a really good pursuit out of the defense and a lot of really hard hits," said coach Don Patterson. "Offensively, Paul Anderson really stood out and had a good scrimmage.

"It was a tough day to handle footballs for sure. We had our fair share of mistakes and penalties, but they were primarily caused by inexperience of younger players. We had four new guys on the line today so they had their hands full."

"There were a few big plays that we gave up that were directly related to a breakdown in our coverage," said defensive coordinator Thomas Casey. "That was an area we improved dramatically in from 2006 to 2007 and led to much of our success. We will need to do better job of communicating as a defense to limit those big plays by the offense in the next few scrimmages and this coming fall.

"Overall our guys came out today and played extremely hard. The effort was good and there were quite a few big hits," Casey added. "I am pleased with the level of production that we had today. We continue to stress forcing turnovers and creating negative yardage plays for the offense.

"We will need to improve steadily over the next 10 practices and increase our level of productivity in the remaining scrimmages. This group has the ability to execute at a very high level, but we still have a quite a ways to go yet."

-Western Illinois University
Athletics Media Services

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