After five straight practices, and the first day in full pads, football head coach Gus Malzahn decided to take it a little easy on the players to help get the team get ready for the first scrimmage of fall camp Wednesday.
"We shortened it just a little bit, we've got a big scrimmage tomorrow so we just want to make sure everybody gets to the scrimmage and is somewhat fresh and has a chance to mentally prepare because it'll be a big scrimmage for us. Not only as players but for coaches evaluating them," Malzahn said. "Will put them in different situations and try to get them on the field and make plays. We will be fairly basic offensively and defensively so we can evaluate."
Coaches have stressed the importance of these scrimmages to the players and how it is their chance to show the coaches how they can contribute to the team during the season.
"They've been telling us tomorrow is just like an NFL preseason game one," defensive end Craig Sanders said. "During the scrimmages you've got to show out, because they are going to start evaluating us to determine who is going to be on scout team and who is not going to be on scout team."
Obviously the most important thing going into the scrimmage is for the coaches to have the chance to evaluate the quarterbacks.
After five practices there has not been any separation among the four candidates, but tomorrows scrimmage could be the first chance for one of them to separate from the pack.
"There's nothing better to evaluate a quarterback than a scrimmage situation with live bullets coming and everything that comes with that," Malzahn said. "Some people find a way to raise their level and some people get a little nervous."
So far the coaches have been throwing a lot at the players mentally, so tomorrows scrimmage will be a chance for the coaches to test the players on everything they've learned.
"We really are just looking for people getting the plays right, getting lined up right, going fast, execution and getting everybody to work together as one unit," Jay Prosch said.
The Tigers will be looking to execute around 100 plays in different situations for tomorrows scrimmage.
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