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News With Commentary by TSL Staff Thursday, April 11, 2002 Scrimmage Recaps The Hokies held controlled scrimmages Saturday and Wednesday, and some interesting action occurred at the running back and quarterback positions. Plus, Cols Colas is starting to emerge at defensive end. Saturday's Scrimmage Saturday's scrimmage was an 87-play scrimmage that rewarded points to the offensive and defensive units for performance. The defense scored 3 points for a stop (on downs) and 6 points for a turnover, while the offense scored 3 points for a field goal, 6 points for a touchdown, and 1 point for a first down that started outside of the 50 yard line. The offense started at various places on the field throughout the day. The defense won the scrimmage 45-42. The highlights for the offense were two four-yard TD runs by Kevin Jones and an 88-yard touchdown pass (per hokiesportsinfo.com; BeamerBall.com reported 80 yards) from Will Hunt to Keith Burnell. Hunt hit Burnell on a 15-yard slant, and Burnell took it the rest of the way. Carter Warley also had three field goals (18, 35, and 38 yards, with no misses). Defensively, DE Cols Colas had three sacks, while DT Kevin Lewis added two. DE Jim Davis, LB Alex Markogiannakis and ROV Sam Fatherly had one sack each (the quarterbacks wore yellow "no-contact" jerseys, so all the defenders had to do was touch them to record a sack). Backer Vegas Robinson led the defense with five solo tackles, including two for a loss, and an assist. This scrimmage saw the return of Lee Suggs to contact football. He participated in just four plays and ran twice for 18 yards. Medically, Suggs' repaired knee has been given the green light by Tech's trainers and team physician, but running backs coach Billy Hite said Monday that he will continue to give Suggs very limited work in scrimmages and probably won't play him at all in the spring game. Wednesday's Scrimmage On Wednesday, the Hokies worked on their red-zone offense and defense in a controlled scrimmage that had the offense starting a total of fourteen drives from the 4, 8, 12, 15, 25, and 35 yard lines. The big news in this scrimmage centered around two things: (1) the quarterbacks played without their yellow jerseys, meaning that full-contact tackling of the QB's was allowed, and any sacks registered were legitimate sacks; (2) the passing stats were terrible, with just 2 passes completed out of 19 attempts, with no TD's and 2 interceptions. Bryan Randall was 2-for-8 with an interception, Grant Noel was 0-for-9 with an interception, and Will Hunt was 0-for-2. Sources at the scrimmage report that although the passing stats were awful, the receivers played a big part in that, dropping anywhere from 5 to 8 passes that were catchable. Drops were shared by the running backs, tight ends, and wide receivers alike, as the Tech pass catchers continue to struggle with reeling the ball in. Noel and Randall each had 40-yard end zone incompletions that observers say were catchable balls. The big plays in the scrimmage were a 75-yard fumble return for a touchdown by walk-on whip linebacker Tommy Morgan, and a 10-yard reverse-field scramble for a TD on an option by QB Bryan Randall. Carter Warley was perfect on four field goal attempts (37, 34, 27 and 24 yards), and tailback Cedric Humes had TD runs of 25 yards and 1 yard. Kevin Jones added a 2-yard TD run. Defensively, Cols Colas had four sacks, and he hit Grant Noel on a pass attempt as Noel released it, causing an interception by Tim Sandidge. Garnell Wilds had the interception of Randall. Composite Stats Here are some composite stats from the two most recent scrimmages, which will give you a quick overview of how various players are performing. Please note that accurate and complete scrimmage stats are not available, and that these stats represent a compilation of statistics found primarily on hokiesportsinfo.com: Quarterbacks (16-for-52, 244 yards, 2 TD's, 3 INT's) Running backs Receivers Sacks
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