Aug. 6—Judging the state of a football team from an initial scrimmage is an iffy thing at best.
University of Idaho coach Thomas Ford Jr. was game, though, and took a stab at it after the Vandals worked live for about two hours with game officials during the team’s first practice in full pads at the Kibbie Dome on Wednesday.
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Ford said he was eager to see the defense actually tackle, since to this point the team had only been in shorts, jerseys and helmets before recently adding shoulder pads.
Also, “I wanted to see if we could work operationally on offense,” he said. “I think all of those things got accomplished today.”
Another indicator occurred after the scrimmage. Vandals’ starters, still in uniform, sat at several long tables and in assembly-line fashion, signing posters at an industrial pace. An attribute of a potentially good team, it seems, is that someone actually wants your autograph.
Ford touched on this obliquely in praising the level of urgent, consistent effort he has seen throughout preseason camp. He said the Vandals realize “we are in position to have a chance. Not every team has a chance to be a playoff team.”
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Things started off with a bang for the defense as junior safety Tim Jackson intercepted quarterback Joshua Wood on the first play, a short pass across the middle.
But Wood, a redshirt sophomore transfer from Fresno State who has already been named the starter, bounced back quickly. He led the offense to a pair of scores — the first a 25-yard Cameron Pope field goal.
The second, a 5-yard touchdown toss from Wood, was set up by a sparkling run by senior Elisha Cummings, who followed the blocks of senior guard Nate Azzopardi and junior tackle Charlie Vliem into the clear and rocketed into the end zone from 15 yards out. Cummings, however, was not a target for live tackling, Ford said, so the play was whistled dead at the 5-yard line.
From there, Wood found redshirt sophomore tight end Gabe Hoffman with a low throw that a sliding Hoffman caught in front of redshirt senior cornerback Kamari Baker in the end zone.
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That pretty much ended Wood’s workday. Idaho is still sorting out its quarterback depth, which includes redshirt sophomores Nick Josifek and Jack Wagner, redshirt freshmen Holden Bea and Rocco Koch and freshman Sawyer Teeney. All five picked up the remaining repetitions. Redshirt freshman tight end Aiden Nixon made Bea look good on one series as Bea led him around the left end with a low throw that Nixon secured with a one-handed catch.
While Cummings was off limits for being tackled to the ground, Ford was pleased with the effort of redshirt sophomore running back Art Williams, who missed significant time in spring practice.
“Art Williams did a good job of breaking tackles,” said Ford. He also commended the offensive line play while sending a subtle message to the defense. “I’d like to get a little bit better against the run.”
Redshirt senior defensive tackle Zach Krotzer, however, said the offense was seeing a pretty plain version of Idaho’s defense.
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“There is not a lot in,” he acknowledged.
The opportunity for the run defense to test itself, though, was appreciated, Krotzer said.
“I love seeing our running backs run,” said Krotzer. “Our defensive line can hit. Our linebackers can hit.”
Of all the quarterbacks, Teeney, the freshman, is probably least likely to see the field this year.
But in his lone series at the end of the workout he threw a touchdown to fellow freshman receiver Nolan McWilliams to put an emphatic exclamation point on the first scrimmage of what might be a pretty good Idaho team.
