It didn’t take Chad Chalich long to figure out where to go with the football. On the second play of the seventh drive of the Aug. 17 scrimmage at the SprinTurf, the second of the fall, Chalich faked the hand-off, stepped up into the pocket and delivered a ball deep right to fellow redshirt freshman Deon Watson for one of his seven total touchdowns on the day.
Curtis Ginnetti | Argonaut
Quarterback Chad Chalich looks down field during the Vandals’ first scrimmage on Aug. 17 on the SprinTurf. The Vandals’ first game of the season is Aug. 31 in Denton, Texas, against the University of North Texas. The team will return home for a matchup with Northern Illinois University on Saturday, Sept. 14.
The play comes close to summing up the entire scrimmage, an afternoon that saw the former Coeur d’Alene high school standouts take the spotlight.
Chalich finished the day with 19-of-20 passing for 414 yards, five touchdown passes and seven total touchdowns. Two of those touchdown passes went to Watson, who finished with three catches for 84 yards.
“We’ve been together since first grade, playing football all through junior tackle, high school and now here, we had that chemistry, we know what each guy is going to do,” Chalich said of Watson.
The chemistry was big for both redshirt freshmen on Saturday, since both are at positions of hot competition where playing time is very much in the air.
“It was really good,” Idaho coach Paul Petrino said . “There were a couple plays (Chalich) still made me upset, but other than that he played really well. There were a couple times he had a couple guys who were hot, didn’t see them. Another time, he went the wrong way on a read, that’s about all I can think of.”
The scrimmage wasn’t nearly as long as the first one, taking significantly less drives to get to the target goal of ten touchdowns. The offense had a better day than the first scrimmage, although the quarterbacks not participating in tackling may have played a part. It allowed Chalich and the other quarterbacks to hit on multiple plays down the field and score quickly, something absent from the week before.
“I think anytime, really when we’ve been our best is when we can throw play-action down the field, be real good in our quick game and run the ball and not have to throw all that drop-back,” Petrino said.
Petrino told The Argonaut previously he won’t be explicitly naming a starting quarterback prior to the Aug. 31 opener at North Texas, but at this point it’d be hard to assume Chalich hasn’t taken a strong lead in the competition.
“I felt like I did pretty good. There’s always areas of improvement. I got after it today, I made some plays, but there’s always areas to improve, I’m going to go watch film and learn,” Chalich said.
Chalich’s competitors for the starting job, returning senior Taylor Davis and junior college transfer Josh McCain, combined for only 34 snaps and three total touchdowns during the scrimmage — Chalich took 34 snaps himself, all with the first team, en route to his seven touchdown performance.
At this point, if a starting quarterback decision hasn’t already been made it will be hard for McCain and Davis to overcome Chalich with only one scrimmage remaining in the fall, a simulated game Friday afternoon in the Kibbie Dome.
Watson’s performance out-wide helped him stand out in a crowded wide receiver situation, which has saw junior college Dezmon Epps storm to the top of the depth chart with true freshmen Trent Cowan, Jacob Sannon and Reuben Mwehla also fighting for playing time. His advantage just may be his height — he’s listed at 6-foot-3 — and his chemistry with the probable starting quarterback.
“(The competition) brings out the best in us, whoever plays, whoever is the best and provides for the team is the right one, hopefully I can be that. Everything is earned around here,” Watson said.
Spots at the top of the depth chart appear to be getting settled soon with Idaho’s opener against North Texas only eight days away. Game preparation for the season opener started as recently as last Saturday, Petrino said.
“We have to keep going against each other for the speed and for the competitiveness, now we’ll start narrowing in and working our game plan against the schemes North Texas does,” Petrino said. “So really these are the runs we’re going to run against North Texas, we’re going to start working on them..
Next week will be fun. We have two weeks and then showtime.”
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]