Bobcats Set for Saturday Scrimmage
8/15/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Rob Ash and his Montana State football team reach a pivotal point of its fall camp on Saturday, when the Bobcats take to the Bobcat Stadium field at 2:30 pm for the program's major preseason scrimmage.
"This is really an important time right now," Ash said. "The guys like to scrimmage, and they know that it's an important part of the process."
Ash hopes his squad answers a pair of questions Saturday. "First, what's the mental framework for this team?" he said. "Who can line up and not jump off-sides when it's third-and-one, who can play when they're excited, who can play when they're really competing hard?
"Second, how is the physical execution in a live situation?" Ash said. "Who can block and tackle? Who can break tackles on offense? That's how you make plays, and you can't practice that (without full contact) in football. We're looking to see who can finish plays on both sides of the ball."
Ash said the Bobcats built more physical down time into this month's practice schedule. "We decided in our summer planning to build more rest into our camp schedule than we've had before. We built in a regular Thursday no-practice. It's not a total day off in the sense that the guys do have meeting that they have to come to, we'll watch film and so forth."
One of the underpinnings of this month's success actually happened much earlier in the summer, Ash said. "I'm pretty happy with our overall conditioning and our overall status right now. I think in our summer program, Coach (Doug) Samuelson and our strength staff did a really good job getting our guys ready for the season. We've given then enough rest, we've been smart about reps during practice."
Still, Ash said the importance of Saturday's scrimmage and the ensuing days can't be understated. "This is really an important time right now," he said. "We did some live work on Wednesday, Saturday is live, and next Wednesday is a little bit live. In football you can't really tell for sure who's getting the job done unless you're going live. You don't know if the block was made or not, you don't know the tackle was made or not, you don't know if the back made the guy miss, you don't know a receiver is going to catch the ball over the middle unless the threat of being hit live is there. We're about running out of time. In less than a week we'll be done with our live work before the first game. We have to get out there and do the right amount - enough evaluation, enough full contact to get an evaluation, but not enough that we're beating our team up - and that's the balance we're always looking for. There are some positions now being evaluated, and the scrimmage Saturday in particular will be very important."
Ash said the focus of the next week remains fine-tuning and evaluation. "We have to get scheme work in, we have to get the reps we need so the package fits together on offense and defense, and on special teams. But there are certain positions we have to evaluate."
Evaluating those key positions holds the utmost importance, Ash said. "We script our practices, so if we need to see if a guy can cover a deep ball we'll schedule a deep ball against that guy. If we need to see how we defend a power, we'll schedule a power play against that guy. We build those situations into practice so we know, the players don't know, but we know we'll be able to evaluate a particular guy in that situation."
"This is really an important time right now," Ash said. "The guys like to scrimmage, and they know that it's an important part of the process."
Ash hopes his squad answers a pair of questions Saturday. "First, what's the mental framework for this team?" he said. "Who can line up and not jump off-sides when it's third-and-one, who can play when they're excited, who can play when they're really competing hard?
"Second, how is the physical execution in a live situation?" Ash said. "Who can block and tackle? Who can break tackles on offense? That's how you make plays, and you can't practice that (without full contact) in football. We're looking to see who can finish plays on both sides of the ball."
Ash said the Bobcats built more physical down time into this month's practice schedule. "We decided in our summer planning to build more rest into our camp schedule than we've had before. We built in a regular Thursday no-practice. It's not a total day off in the sense that the guys do have meeting that they have to come to, we'll watch film and so forth."
One of the underpinnings of this month's success actually happened much earlier in the summer, Ash said. "I'm pretty happy with our overall conditioning and our overall status right now. I think in our summer program, Coach (Doug) Samuelson and our strength staff did a really good job getting our guys ready for the season. We've given then enough rest, we've been smart about reps during practice."
Still, Ash said the importance of Saturday's scrimmage and the ensuing days can't be understated. "This is really an important time right now," he said. "We did some live work on Wednesday, Saturday is live, and next Wednesday is a little bit live. In football you can't really tell for sure who's getting the job done unless you're going live. You don't know if the block was made or not, you don't know the tackle was made or not, you don't know if the back made the guy miss, you don't know a receiver is going to catch the ball over the middle unless the threat of being hit live is there. We're about running out of time. In less than a week we'll be done with our live work before the first game. We have to get out there and do the right amount - enough evaluation, enough full contact to get an evaluation, but not enough that we're beating our team up - and that's the balance we're always looking for. There are some positions now being evaluated, and the scrimmage Saturday in particular will be very important."
Ash said the focus of the next week remains fine-tuning and evaluation. "We have to get scheme work in, we have to get the reps we need so the package fits together on offense and defense, and on special teams. But there are certain positions we have to evaluate."
Evaluating those key positions holds the utmost importance, Ash said. "We script our practices, so if we need to see if a guy can cover a deep ball we'll schedule a deep ball against that guy. If we need to see how we defend a power, we'll schedule a power play against that guy. We build those situations into practice so we know, the players don't know, but we know we'll be able to evaluate a particular guy in that situation."
Wednesday, June 10
Friday, March 27
Monday, March 23
Friday, March 13
