Offense Shines In First Football Scrimmage
April 8, 2000
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Oregon State held its first scrimmage of the spring and the offense, sparked by the running of Ken Simonton, Patrick McCall and Antonio Battle, was impressive during the 77 play scrimmage.
In just the fourth practice day of the spring, the No. 1 offense scored on the first two drives of the afternoon. On the first drive, starting from its own 35, the No. 1 offense drove to the 1-yard line before the No. 1 defense held and forced a 21-yard field goal by Terrence Carroll.
In its next series, the No. 1 offense marched 65 yards in 8 plays to score with McCall going the final 8 yards.
After the initial two drives, the defensive unit started asserting itself and made it more difficult for the offense to move the football.
The next score came with redshirt freshman Shayne House operating at quarterback with the first unit and he threw a perfect strike of 43 yards to Robert Prescott for a touchdown after executing a perfect bootleg play. House moved the offense 65 yards in 6 plays for the score.
With Jonathan Smith back at quarterback, he drove the offense 51 yards in 7 plays with Mike White booting a 31-yard field goal as the drive stalled.
The final score of the afternoon came on a 13-yard pass from Nick Stremick to Junior Adams on a drive that covered 65 yards in five plays.
While Coach Dennis Erickson was very pleased with the offense in the Beavers' first scrimmage out of the shoot, the day got off to poor start as starting middle linebacker Tevita Moala suffered a knee injury during warm-up drills.
The extent of Moala's injury is not know at this time, but Erickson expects he will miss the rest of the spring. "We will know more on Monday abut Moala, but I would expect him to be out the rest of the spring,' said Erickson. "Hopefully, we will be ready to go in the fall."
Moala's injury really hurts OSU as depth at linebacker is thin. "I thought the scrimmage went real well today, especially offensively," said Erickson. "It probably was as well as the offense has performed in a long time, especially for this early in the spring. I thought our first defense played well, but we must start developing some depth. Our thought the offense ran the football very consistently throughout the entire scrimmage."
Erickson thought all four of the quarterbacks had their moments. "I thought Jonathan (Smith) played extremely well and did some really good things," said Erickson. "You can tell the experience that he has helps him. We are trying to find out who No. 2 is right now and that is up in the air. Shayne House did some good things after not playing for some time as a result of the shoulder injury he had last fall. Hopefully, he can continue to improve."
Erickson was very happy with the funning game. "We have a great one-two punch with Ken Simonton and Patrick McCall," said Erickson. "Patrick was very impressive out there today and we all know what Ken can do, but I thought Patrick was particularly impressive and that gives us great depth. It will give us an opportunity to give Ken a rest during a game and that will make Ken that will make Ken that much better."
Oregon State's next practice will be on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. The Beavers' next scrimmage will take place on Saturday, starting at 10:00 a.m. in Reser Stadium. OSU also has scrimmages set for Thursday, April 20, starting at 4:00 p.m. and will conclude with its Spring Game on Saturday, April 29, starting at 1:00 p.m.
SCORING SUMMARY:
Ryan Cesca 21 FG
Patrick McCall 7 run (Cesca PAT)
Robert Prescott 43 pass from Shayne House (Matt Stanwood PAT)
Mike White 31 FG
Robert Adams 13 pass from Nick Stremick (No PAT)
STATISTICS
Rushing: Ken Simonton, 9-75, Antonio Battle, 9-70, Patrick McCall, 7-37, Hashim Hall, 5-28, Shayne House, 5-15, Jonathan Smith, 3 (-14), Tyler Thomas, 2- (-9), Nick Stremick, 2 (-17). Team 42-231 (-60)-171
Passing: (PA-PC-PI-NYP-TD) Jonathan Smith, 10-4-0-63-0, Nick Stremick, 8-4-1-80-1, Tyler Thomas, 10-3-0-15-0, Shayne House, 4-1-0-43-1.
Receiving: James Newson, 3-15, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, 2-47, Robert Adams, 2-21, Monjero Jones, 1-44, Patrick McCall, 1-15.
