The good news in yesterday's scrimmage is, our 2nd team offense made some fantastic plays against our 2nd team defense yesterday. Most notably, a 70-yard pass play between Cam Dantley and Marcus Sales, who continues to make big play in the spring. The bad news...the 1st team offense got taken behind the woodshed by the 1st team defense. Some would even say they were dominated. Not Doug Marrone though...
"Dominate's a pretty tough word," Marrone said. "To give you a cap of what I saw of the scrimmage, the first-and-10s part of the scrimmages in the beginning, offense made a lot of big plays. Then when we went to the plus-50, the offense moved the ball well. They really did. And then all of a sudden, we get into the red zone at the 20 and then the defense stuffs us.
"I don't know if there's a dominating part in any of that, but what I see, we can't be successful wilth that type of enthusiasm or consistency, one side of the ball or the other. We need a higher level of competition and a higher level of enthusiasm. That's what I'm looking for."
According to Donnie, what Nassib is lacking in his passing he's making up for in his option and bootleg scrambles. Sales isn't the only player making a name for himself. All of the running backs continue to make big plays and the defense had multiple sacks on the day. One in particular by Doug Hogue got Marrone all hot and bothered:
"That is not a good job. That is a tremendous job."
Enthusiasm is the name of the game right now for the Orange. Marrone likes what he sees but he wants more:
“We believe enthusiasm creates power,” Marrone said. “It’s not at a level that we need it to be consistently throughout the practice. That’s what I’m really looking to get out of the players right now — enthusiasm throughout the whole practice. There are some ups and downs that concern me, a lack of focus with a turnover or a penalty.”
Nothing 20 laps can't fix.