Caught the first hour of action from the scrimmage with Pick North today. Varsity was on one end of the field and JV on the other. Both teams rotated offensive and defensive series, running 10-15 plays or so from the 35. Didn't focus too much on the JV end, but will say that group is massive up front and appears to have a number of playmakers. They were consistently finding the endzone from what I could tell.
As for the varsity, the run game looks like it picked up right where it left off from last season. Not a big group up front (at least for our standards). Looks like they are all about 6'2-6'3, 275-285 range from end to end. No tackle bodies (those are on the JV team). But they are a very physical group and had no problem getting underneath the PN d-line and moving them wherever they wanted. Enovitch ran well inside and out, breaking off a handful of runs in excess of 25 yards. Ramos ran well from the QB position, including a long TD run. Looks to have improved his speed a bit.
Unfortunately, the pass game looks like it picked up where it left last year as well. Several errant throws. Missing wide open guys. Ramos threw best from the pocket, feet planted, and in between the hashes. Completed several nice throws to TE's and slot backs up the seams, with a couple for TD's. Outside throws were a big problem. We may need to scrap these sprint-left, throw-on-the-run passes to the sidelines. They went low, high, and everywhere in between, rarely finding the receiver. I hope this changes as Manning and Goodall are both too talented to waste on the outside. But overall, for a first scrimmage, happy with what I saw from the offense. Consistently moved the sticks and scored at least 4-5 times in the hour I was there.
Defensively the Eagles pitched a shutout during the first hour, despite noticeable absences from two of our best players Brown and Bixby. Don't think it's anything serious with Brown and the staff may just being cautious with him. Not seeing Bixby was more concerning seeing as how he sat out all last season. If anyone has details PM me. Aside from getting burned on a couple screen passes, the defense did not give up anything over 10 yards while I was there. LB's were very active in between the tackles, and the secondary was really hitting. Wyatt Gedeon is going to be a very good one at LB next to Brown, and I believe it was Riley that I saw flying around as an in-the-box safety. CJ Harvey was very active on the defensive interior blowing up gaps.
Not sure how the second hour unfolded, but the first hour was a lop-sided affair in favor of the Eagles.