The first spring scrimmage gave Idaho coach Paul Petrino the opportunity to run his players through nearly 200 plays and get a look at them in a competitive setting for the first time since closing the 2013 season in Las Cruces, N.M., last November.
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Senior cornerback Delency Parham, left, and sophomore wide receiver Jacob Sannon square off during a drill at practice Wednesday afternoon at the SprinTurf. The two arrived last fall and are in the midst of ongoing position battles this spring in the secondary and at wide receiver.
The next scrimmage, slated for 4 p.m. Friday at the Kibbie Dome, will take it a step further and start to determine an early depth chart, the second-year coach said.
“That’ll be two scrimmages in the books so that’ll start getting some depth charts going, it’ll be a big day for everybody,” Petrino said.
That’ll be true at almost every position, with most eyes on the two quarterbacks, Chad Chalich and Matt Linehan. Other position battles are likely to get settled much sooner, including an offensive line that has four starting positions up for grabs right now.
“I think there’s tons (of competition), with every position on the team, everyone wants to play and that’s how it should be,” center Mike Marboe said.
Marboe is one of the few players who has secured a starting spot already based on experience, but there’s uncertainty as to who will be lining up next to him come Saturday afternoons in the fall. Eight players with starting experience returned in 2014 to go along with two junior college additions who are making their presence known with the first team rotation.
The result for the unit was mixed in the first scrimmage. They gave up nine sacks, albeit in almost two-and-a-half games worth of plays.
“That’s frustrating, but we also ran almost 200 plays,” Marboe said. “It’s good to see them getting their work in too. Without a good defense, you can’t have a good team. We got to just come together, get with the protections, get them going and make plays.”
The offense still ultimately walked away with slight bragging rights after last Saturday’s scrimmage, scoring 20 touchdowns.
Petrino isn’t necessarily worried about the defense, which is still in the process of mixing in new players and implementing schemes. It worked on situational defensive situations during the second week of practices, such as third down and worked more with the nickel package during the second week of practice.
“Just stuff that we know we have to be good at to win. We have to be a great situational team, working the critical zone a ton, blitz pick-up and some run play-action,” Petrino said. “Defense has been doing a lot of stuff, at times the offense won. The defense, there’s definitely some things we did that were different, we just have to keep getting better.”
Saturday’s scrimmage will be the second of the spring, with one more remaining the next Saturday before the annual Silver and Gold spring game on April 25.
“I just want to see great execution, guys flying around, playing hard. We’ve had a good spring so far, that’s really showing up,” Petrino said.
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]