Kerry Sloan carried eight times on Wednesday.
Photo by: Kelly Gorham
CATS IN CAMP: Day Thirteen
8/17/2011 7:57:00 PM | Football
Defense rules the day in second scrimmage
Montana State's defense forced two fumbles, intercepted a pair of passes and held the Bobcat offense out of the end zone in an impressive showing during the team's second scrimmage of the fall in Bobcat Stadium Wednesday.
MSU's defense set the tone with a rush defense that allowed just 55 yards on 21 designed runs, six resulting in tackles-for-loss. The defense also recorded five sacks.
“The defense played well,” said sophomore quarterback DeNarius McGhee. We didn't get a good tempo going.”
Ash was impressed with his stop unit. “I thought they really came to play,” he said. “I'm very excited for the defense. They played hard. They had success early, and built on it.”
Zach Minter provided an early boost with a sack on a third-and-five near midfield to end the offense's first drive. Brad Daly's sack effectively ended the second drive, while a John Laidet tackle-for-loss and forced fumble, followed by a Christian Keli'I sack and a team sack ended drive number three. In all, seven drives ended in three plays or less.
“I'm happy about the defense's ability to take the ball away today,” Ash said. “This is the 15th practice and they've never had more than one turnover in a practice. Hopefully this shows that we can be the kind of defense that can get takeaways.”
The offense was not without its bright spots. McGhee completed eight-of-10 passes for 123 yards, while Elvis Akpla caught four passes for 99 yards.
MSU takes Thursday off from practice before returning with a pair of Friday sessions and a Saturday morning practice. MSU tops the weekend off with Family Fun Day on Saturday at 2 pm on the MSU practice fields.
RUSHING: Kerry Sloan 8-11, CJ Palmer 7-24, Tray Robinson 6-20, Grayson Galloway 2-22, Jake Bleskin 1-4, DeNarius McGhee 1- -2.
PASSING: DeNarius McGhee 10-8-0, 123, 0; Grayson Galloway 15-10-1, 110, 0; Jake Bleskin 5-2-0, 38, 0; Te'Shon Burton 1-1-0, 22, 0; Cody Kirk 1-0-1.
RECEIVING: Elvis Akpla 4-99, Chase Young 4-44, Kruiz Siewing 3-40, David Dash 3-23, CJ Palmer 2-16, Kevin Steiner 1-8, Matt Thibault 1-16, Tiai Salanoa 1-22, Michael Perryman 1-22, Kerry Sloan 1-3.
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