March 29, 2014

Let's have some fun: Brown enoying changes during spring drills

Weather conditions Saturday in Tucker Stadium might have been better suited for a day at the Iditarod than college football, but it didn’t stop Tennessee Tech from working through a 65-play scrimmage.

By Rob Schabert, Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Information

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – Weather conditions Saturday in Tucker Stadium might have been better suited for a day at the Iditarod than college football, but it didn’t stop Tennessee Tech from working through a 65-play scrimmage.

The second scrimmage of spring drills saw the Golden Eagles improve on offense from last week, according to head coach Watson Brown. The veteran coach was pleased with the effort his team showed, despite the less-than-ideal conditions. The temperature hovered around 42 degrees and a cold drizzle came at a harsh angle from the north in a 10-15 mph breeze.

“We wouldn’t practice in bad weather like this, but if it’s a scrimmage we go in it,” Brown said. “We would have to play in it, so we need to be prepared for it. Gameday is gameday, and you play in whatever weather you get.”

While the Golden Eagle defense is running the same system in 2014 as last year, the offense is making some changes and Brown thought that side of the ball showed progress in the past week.

“This week I really wanted to see the system better, not so much the defense as the offense, and that’s what I saw. We had better flow, and we looked much more like the team that we want to be with the fast-paced offense. We weren’t standing around looking at each other, and trying to figure out what to do.”

There was no trick to making the improvements, Brown said, just hard work in the past week.

“It was just another week of reps, another week of practice,” he said. “We’re running the same plays, but they’re starting to understand much better.”

The offense is undergoing a metamorphosis, with the inclusion of a position that features the deep talent Tech features at quarterback.

“You can’t have Jared Davis, Brock McCoin, and Darian Stone on the team and have two of them on the bench,” Brown said.

The result finds two of them on the field at the same time, sometimes passing, sometimes rushing – and sometimes catching passes.

“I’m having fun,” Brown said. “It’s going to be real interesting.”

Sorting out who lines up where is one of the staff’s goals this spring.

“It’s a lot of trial and error, but what we’re doing right now is much more polished that last week. We had much better flow, and I thought we made good progress from last week to this week.”

An interesting spin-off of moving his signal callers around in the formation is calling the actual signals.

“That’s one of the things they need to learn is the different voices,” Browns said. “We have five different voices calling signals, and it’s going to take some getting used to their voices and their cadences.”

In the Saturday rain, the passing attack suffered from several dropped balls. Tech’s six different passers combined to go 12-for-24 for 108 yards. Charlie High led the way, completing 4-for-8 for 35 yards, while Jared Davis was 3-for-8 for 31 yards.

Instead, the ground game was the primary focus and 10 different ball carriers combined for 284 yards on 39 carries, including all four touchdowns.

Sophomore Radir Annoor had the biggest numbers, rushing eight times for 71 yards and two touchdowns. He scored on runs of two and five yards.

Senior Darian Stone had three carries for 41 yards, including a 29-yard touchdown. He also caught a pass for a 17-yard gain.

The other touchdown came on a 14-yard scamper through a gaping hole in the middle of the line by redshirt freshman Brock McCoin, a play that ended the day’s action. He had four carries for 27 yards.

“The other thing that I’m seeing is some really good backs,” Brown said. “We held out some of the older guys today, and we’re seeing some young guys really coming through.”

Such as redshirt freshman Trey Burks, who finished with 42 yards on four carries. The top receiver was redshirt freshman Tyrus Rollins with four catches for 32 yards. In all, nine different players caught passes.

The team has a little more than one week left in spring drills, including the annual Spring Game next Saturday, April 5, beginning at 12 p.m. Because of weather, Tech will practice two days after the spring game. The team is scheduled to be on Overall Field Tuesday and Thursday afternoons this week for practices.