Coach Bohl’s Comments About Pokes Offense After Cowboy Spring Game

Here are some comments from head football coach Craig Bohl following yesterday’s Brown and gold Spring Game won by the Brown 10-8 as time expired:

“Today was an opportunity for us to put our team in a game-like situation,” said Bohl.  “I don’t think there were any injuries, so I’m always pleased about that.  There is nothing you can do to replicate those two-minutes drives.  Even though it’s the Spring Game, those guys feel like its a real game, so I thought it was a really good evaluation tool”.   [bsa_pro_ad_space id=7]

“Some of the observations I saw, I thought our offensive line did a good job at the point of attack.  I thought our running backs ran hard”.

“Both quarterbacks threw the ball fairly well.  It was the first time we were on the shot clock, so we’ve got to manage our clock a little bit better.  However, I thought the two-minute drive at the end was encouraging”. (Nick Smith and Tyler Vander Waal rotated between both the Brown and Gold teams throughout the game.  Smith finished the day 8 of 12 for 96 yards, one TD and no INT’s.  Vander Waal was 15 of 23 for 129 yards, no TD’s or INT’s).

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Asked about how he thought the quarterbacks played and whether he was ready to name a starter, Bohl responded, “We’ll name a starting quarterback next week some time.  But I can tell you this, the competition during the course of spring was so close, and I thought today was close.  We’ll name a starter, but that does not mean that guy is entrenched, whoever that may be.

Nico Evans led all rushers with 111 yards on 18 carries, scored one rushing touchdown, had a long run of 20 yards and averaged 6.2 yards per carry.  Mike Green ran for 43 yards on 11 attempts, had a long run of 10 yards and averaged 3.9 yards per carry.  He also caught the successful two-point conversion pass from Smith and had another catch of eight yards.

“What you saw today (from our running backs) were a lot of yards after contact,” said Bohl.  “I don’t know what the stat sheet showed, but I felt we were moving the ball on the ground and created a lot of third down and makeables and that is a significant difference from where we’ve been.  I thought the running backs ran hard, and I thought Nico (Evans) ran particulary hard.”

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Dontae Crow led all receivers with three catches for 85 yards, including his 38-yard touchdown grab.  Austin Conway caught six passes for 37 yards.  Senior tight end Josh Harshman had four receptions for 32 yards, and Hall caught three passes for 31 yards.

“The kicking game needs to get shored up a little bit.  A couple of Cooper’s (Rothe) kickoffs have got to be better than that.  It was encouraging to see him hit the winning field goal”.

“Outside of that, I thought a really good spring and we’ve got to keep moving this program forward.”