Offensive lineman Lloyd Willis (51) and Jeremy Jones (74) warm up as Marshall football conducts its first spring practice on Monday, March 25, 2024, at Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington.
Offensive lineman Lloyd Willis (51) and Jeremy Jones (74) warm up as Marshall football conducts its first spring practice on Monday, March 25, 2024, at Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington.
HUNTINGTON — There was a different energy inside Joan C. Edwards Stadium on Saturday, one week before Marshall is scheduled to play its spring football scrimmage.
On a sun-drenched field in the middle of the day, the Thundering Herd got its first taste of a true scrimmage, and coaches used that as a way to further evaluate players still fighting for position on the depth chart.
“There’s a lot of guys right on the edge that we’ve got to make some decisions on,” coach Charles Huff said. “Is this a guy that’s going to help us in the fall, [or], the reality of college football, do we need to go to the portal at this or this position?”
Players went full speed through reps on both offense and defense as they moved up and down the field. It helped them get into the mindset of truly making every rep count.
“We’re one of the hardest-working teams in the country, and in practice, it’s like a million reps, but a scrimmage day has a different focus,” Marshall wide receiver Christian Fitzpatrick said. “You don’t know if one rep is going to be your last of that drive or not, so it’s about attention to detail and staying laser-focused because you might only see two or three balls on a Saturday.”
That real-time action gave the Herd’s coaching staff a better chance to judge where players are in the developmental stage and how quickly they are grasping concepts within the offensive, defensive and special teams playbooks.
“It’s hard in a normal practice because everything is so scripted to truly evaluate how a guy is going to do with two, three or four plays in a competitive period,” Huff said.
Huff said he appreciated that the scrimmage wasn’t one-sided and that both the offensive and defensive units made plays that stood out to him.
The Herd will try and take that momentum into the final four practices of the spring period and put a bow on the spring with another scrimmage in front of fans on Saturday at 4 p.m.
“We’ll go back and watch the film,” Huff said. “We’ve got one more week, and next week is going to be [about] the guys we feel are right on the edge. We’ve got to push them over the edge.”
Some of the performances Huff said stuck out to him were the overall play of the quarterbacks, who are starting to get a better feel for the new offensive scheme, and some standout plays downfield in the secondary.
Another was the play of North Carolina transfer Tychaun Chapman.
“The system is new, and he’s been frustrated with himself because he knows he can make the plays, and today he was able to make them,” Huff said, “and I think the quarterbacks are getting better. They kind of went through the plays and progressions quicker.”
Luke Creasy is a reporter for The Herald-Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @LukeCreasy or reach him by phone at 304-526-2800.
