If I were Coach Bohl....

[PotatoCreekPete]

I would spend this time period between the end of Spring ball and the beginning of Fall camp looking for a QB.

I am sorry, but I have to call it like I see it. I sat through the whole game today and there are some really good parts of this team.

Strengths: Defensive line, especially defensive ends. I was really impressed with Appleby and Uso and Mertens is a stud. But Puletasi and Yarbrough at defensive ends, are probably the best tandem in the MWC in my opinion. Surprise strength, cornerbacks. More speed and aggressiveness than I have seen in quite a while. Another strength, speed at the WR position. It was hard to tell last year how much speed we had at WR because the play at the position was so poor, but I was really impressed with Trent Sewell and Trey Norman. I saw something today that has been very rare for the last 5 or so years....a Tight End catching passes. J.D. Krill showed good speed and decent hands today.

Weakness: Offense in general. There would have been more sacks if the QB's hadn't handed the ball off more. It was hard to tell about the Offensive line because the starters were split up whereas the majority of the starters on the defensive line were on the Brown squad. It was also hard to tell how good or bad the QB's actually are due to the problems with the Offensive line. But I do feel the Offensive line will be fine when all of the starters are back together. The problem with the QB position is that the best passers are not runners (today they needed to be to just survive) and the best runners are not passers. The best pure passer appeared to be Kirkegaard but he is not a runner and doesn't have the quickest passing motion. The best pure runner was Stratton by far. He scrambled really well, but he wasn't the best passer by far. Tom Thornton actually threw the best pass of the day to Trent Sewell, beautiful spiral and beautiful play. Aaron Young wasn't impressive. The closest thing that Wyoming has to a play maker IMO is Stratton, but he really isn't a great passer. He can make most of the short throws but has difficulty with the long throws IMO.

A surprise strength, was the running back position. I thought that most of the guys ran hard, but Shaun Wick didn't appear to have a great day. However Nevermann surprised me by the speed that he had and that he ran hard and broke tackles, as did Josh Tapscott and Omar Stover, so I feel we have good depth there. It was hard on the running backs as well because of the way the Offensive line was broken up.

Maybe I am spoiled after watching Brett Smith these last three years, but we are far from having a Brett Smith back there. I know some people will say that we don't need a Brett Smith in this offense and there is some truth to that, but you still need a play maker back there that has the ability to make things happen in tight times throughout the season and IMO we just don't have one back there. If I were to pick a guy to start after the Spring game today it would have to be Stratton. I like this team and I am far from hanging my head after watching them today because one thing this team does and that is plays hard.

[BeaverPoke]

I agree. We have no QBs AT ALL.
It's Joe Glenn part two all over again.
No QB...trying to run with a weak O-Line. But the defense should be good and disciplined. Hopefully good enough to keep us in games.
If only Brett or Thompson would have stayed.

[fromolwyoming]

For a pro offense, you don't NEED a dynamic QB. If you get one, that's great! But they are not a must have like they would be in the spread. What you need is someone to manage the game and not turn the ball over. And while having the ability to scramble is nice, it too is not required. If we were still running the spread with the read option and a tone of rollout plays, then I would say the ability to run is required. But we're not, so it isn't. I doubt Bohl would turn down a QB that could, but still, it's not the first thing he will look for.

We do need work on the o-line, no question. But the spread offense and spread QB are very different from the pro style offense.

[PokeOLoco]

But can they make the throws with 8 and 9 man boxes. Glenn's QBs could not in the later years. Receivers were part of the problem too.

[mwc fan]

I thought there was a glaring difference between the brown Defense and the Gold defense. Kind of hard to say that Thornton was the best out there when he went against a patch work defense. Even Bohl commented on the lack of Depth on defense ( gold squad ). If we ran a scrimmage like DC used to with the 1's vs the 2's the Gold offense wouldve ripped up the field. I thought Claiborne looked great, Wick had some strong runs and The TE Krill looked good offensively. The Brown Defense ( starters ) looked exceptional, especially the front 7. Secondary needs work though. The O line concerns me with all the mental errors. You can't have guys on defense shooting the gap and beating you off the ball. Our offensive Tackles took a beating by Sonny and Yarbrough. Overall its easier to gauge your teams talent when the 1's play the 1's and 2's vs. 2's. I had a fun time today and my kids had a great time at the camp.

[MrTitleist]

Aaron Young may benefit from coming early, but a redshirt year is going to be gold for him. That gives him an extra spring of work.. maybe he'll develop into something.

Running back being a strength isn't surprising.. once Wick and May start running together they'll be great. The OL is going to need work, but that seems to be a perpetual problem. However, it really isn't fair going against our DL, they might be among the best in the MW.

[mwc fan]

Aaron Young may benefit from coming early, but a redshirt year is going to be gold for him. That gives him an extra spring of work.. maybe he'll develop into something.

Running back being a strength isn't surprising.. once Wick and May start running together they'll be great. The OL is going to need work, but that seems to be a perpetual problem. However, it really isn't fair going against our DL, they might be among the best in the MW.

I agree about Young. This aint JC ball. I would've thought his numbers would've been better against the 2nd string D. Our O line needs to get used to this blocking scheme. Saw a few times when the guards didnt pull when their supposed to. The TD called back because of a lineman down field etc.. They have the talent, just gotta put it together.

[PotatoCreekPete]

For a pro offense, you don't NEED a dynamic QB. If you get one, that's great! But they are not a must have like they would be in the spread. What you need is someone to manage the game and not turn the ball over. And while having the ability to scramble is nice, it too is not required. If we were still running the spread with the read option and a tone of rollout plays, then I would say the ability to run is required. But we're not, so it isn't. I doubt Bohl would turn down a QB that could, but still, it's not the first thing he will look for.

We do need work on the o-line, no question. But the spread offense and spread QB are very different from the pro style offense.

You are confusing dynamic QB with a play maker. I never said that we needed a dynamic QB as a matter of fact I made the comment about Brett just to cover that. It doesn't matter what offense you run, Spread, Veer, Option, etc., etc......you still HAVE TO HAVE a play maker back there, and IMO we don't have one. Every team will need a play maker back there to make the difficult play when it is crunch time during the season, and it doesn't depend upon the type of offense you run for this situation to happen because all teams will face it at some time during the season. It is just as Coach Bohl says, all good teams have three positions covered with very good players.....QB, DT and CB. I feel that we have two of the three, but the QB position needs more than just someone back there not making mistakes and making good reads. Our QB's right now are limited, and just managing the game and not turning the ball over is not going to take you to the top of ANY conference. Did you notice that we hit only one of our deep sideline routes today? The throws were woefully short on more than one occasion with that route. It is one of the more difficult routes to throw, and our QB's are not able to do it, period. If other teams know that your QB can't make several types of throws because they don't have the arm strength, how much easier did you just make it for the other team to defense you?

As far as the Offensive line is concerned, it appeared the Connor Rains left the game with an injury, so the Offensive lines on both teams was really patchwork type of stuff.

But I do have to give an award here to someone on the Offensive line:

For best hair, it must go to Richard Bettancourt. It appears that he works hard on his hair and it also appeared that he has some good dance moves as he was pulling some of those in front of some of the coaches.

[fromolwyoming]

I couldn't make the game as I am recovering from ankle surgery (less than a week out). All I had to go on were the stats and twitter posts that were posted on here.

[mwc fan]

I agree you do need a playmaker at Qb. The only time the starting Defense didnt stack the box was when we were in a shot gun. We need a Qb that can get those guys outta the box and the only way to do that is to have a Qb that can make a defense respect his arm. We dont have that guy yet. If you want to run a successful power offense you need a Qb that can make a defense pay for stacking. Seriouslly the passing numbers should have been a lot better.

[PotatoCreekPete]

I thought there was a glaring difference between the brown Defense and the Gold defense. Kind of hard to say that Thornton was the best out there when he went against a patch work defense. Even Bohl commented on the lack of Depth on defense ( gold squad ). If we ran a scrimmage like DC used to with the 1's vs the 2's the Gold offense wouldve ripped up the field. I thought Claiborne looked great, Wick had some strong runs and The TE Krill looked good offensively. The Brown Defense ( starters ) looked exceptional, especially the front 7. Secondary needs work though. The O line concerns me with all the mental errors. You can't have guys on defense shooting the gap and beating you off the ball. Our offensive Tackles took a beating by Sonny and Yarbrough. Overall its easier to gauge your teams talent when the 1's play the 1's and 2's vs. 2's. I had a fun time today and my kids had a great time at the camp.

Not disagreeing with what you said, but I thought that it was a bit unfair for the offensive line to have both Yarbrough and Puletasi on the same team today. Yarbrough is just an amazing athlete and has an incredible quickness on his first step. Sonny is no slouch either and he might have an incredible year with Eddie on the other end, because Eddie will get much of the attention and this will hopefully open things up for Sonny. With the DB's, I thought that Blair Burns, Tyran Finley, DeAndre Jones, Courtland Fort, Tim Kamana and Tim Hayes all had pretty decent days. Blair took Maulhardt to the woodshed and covered him like a glove on one route in particular, Tim Kamana had a long runback for a TD off of the fumble, and I saw Tyran Finley and DeAndre Jones and Courtland Fort all have big hits. They played a lot of back-ups in the DB and unfortunately it was most of these guys that got burned, but I thought that our front liners especially played well. One person that I was really surprised to see in the defensive backfield today was Trent Sewell. Trent played WR, DB, punt returner and kick returner today....other than that he didn't do much.

One other note, it was good to see Seth Edeen out there making plays, and he had several nice ones.

[PotatoCreekPete]

I couldn't make the game as I am recovering from ankle surgery (less than a week out). All I had to go on were the stats and twitter posts that were posted on here.

Hope you heal quickly, we need you out there!

[fromolwyoming]

Thanks!

[WYCowboy]

Aaron Young may benefit from coming early, but a redshirt year is going to be gold for him. That gives him an extra spring of work.. maybe he'll develop into something.

Running back being a strength isn't surprising.. once Wick and May start running together they'll be great. The OL is going to need work, but that seems to be a perpetual problem. However, it really isn't fair going against our DL, they might be among the best in the MW.

That's exactly what I am thinking too. QBs Fort & Smith will be here throughout the summer and fall. I think one of those two will probably redshirt as well. Who knows, maybe one of them will surprise (like Brett Smith did as a freshman).

[JimmyDimes]

It might be my brown and gold glasses, but I thought the Pokes looked good. Much more aggressive on D and stronger against the run. I thought Stratton looked decent....he needs to make quicker reads and throws, but he plays tough and keeps plays alive. Only saw one dropped ball. Clairborn could have a big year....and I really like the reverses. The younger Edeen could turn out to be a player. Overall, I thought the team looked sharp and played clean for a spring game.

[BJC]

Not disagreeing with what you said, but I thought that it was a bit unfair for the offensive line to have both Yarbrough and Puletasi on the same team[/quote]

Ummmm unfair. ?...I like our d line....biased I guess but they are going to face =and better ends in the fall

[dapokes]

It's always hard to judge our D-line because our O-line is always so terrible. I'm reserving judgement until the season. Sucks that we are going to get body-bagged by Mich State and Oregon.

[dapokes]

Also, I will never get excited about a JUCO qb ever again. Dax Crum 2.0.

[PotatoCreekPete]

Not disagreeing with what you said, but I thought that it was a bit unfair for the offensive line to have both Yarbrough and Puletasi on the same team

Ummmm unfair. ?...I like our d line....biased I guess but they are going to face =and better ends in the fall [/quote]

Unfair for the Spring Game, the teams were evenly divided from what Coach Bohl said before the game, but most of the defensive line starters were on the Brown squad. I really like our DL as well. IMO it wasn't fair to an offensive line that lost two OT's that quit, and 2 OT's were hurt today, so Yarbrough and Puletasi certainly didn't play against the best OL that Wyoming could put out. This is one of the reasons that Eddie and Sonny practically lived in the offensive backfield today. I know that our OL will face some really good DL this season. "Better ends" in the fall? Maybe with Oregon and Michigan State on the schedule, but I don't think that there is a better tandem in the MWC. So our OL face some of the best, if not the best DL in the MWC day after day in practice.

[J-Rod]

Should we really be shocked though? What if I told you all Colby would be the #1 QB exiting spring a year ago? Come on now....Bohl has the potential to be an elite coach at this level, but the level of miracle-making expected seems unfair. Anyone whose followed the Pokes in recent years would know that if Captain Kirk is the teams best option....the correct response to that is Holy *****.

My prediction has changed though.....I now expect Stratton to eventually start. Maybe not on opening day, but sometime in 2014.