Wednesday scrimmage and thoughts
 

The big guns Beck, Brown, Harline didn't have a great scrimmage but nothing anyone should worry about. We already know how good they are.

Linebackers got through the line of scrimmage a little too easy. Injuries to our OL or maybe they're good. Nixon, Kehl, and Poppinga were very active.

DL--still nothing to impress me. I'm not holding my breath. No tackles like Manaia that you saw throwing O linemen out of the way. No ends like Poppinga, Denney, Frisch or Brock that you saw chasing down the QB or breaking a RB in half as they tried to get to the corner.

DB's--safeties out of position as usual. Miyahira and Gooch ran with the 1's. That's enough to make me throw up right there. Buckner and Criddle ran with the 1's at CB. Not good. Buckner definitely looks like he has some talent but not ready yet. I project the DB's to be just as bad as last year.

Hudson is too small for running back and may not be quick enough for the scat back Jaron Dabney attack. He may never materialize as the feature back at BYU like I thought he would.

Unga looks great. So does Vakapuna and Tonga. Three great FB types. Who cares about Havili?

Max Hall vs Jacob Bower

This was the most interesting topic of the day for me. Bower has a funny throwing motion. He's tall and looks like he should have a rocket but he releases it too high or something. He had a couple nice balls but was off a lot.

Max Hall is smaller and arm strength looked suspect at times. He seemed to have a bit more poise than Bower but still didn't get anything done.

Overall, I'm not thrilled at our prospects in the near future after Beck.

I haven't seen anything yet to change my initial forecast on 2006 season: offense should rip it up, defense will be only slightly improved from last year. Beck doesn't have the star quality to win games he's not supposed to or will the team to a result.