It was a great day to be a Yale fan this past Saturday with fantastic weather, Ivy League Championship rings, a delicious BBQ, and a glimpse of Team 146. There seemed to be a buzz around the Bowl that hadn’t been witnessed in years.
The defense showed that they are not rebuilding next season, but reloading with talent. Reno has been able to build solid depth across the board with sustained stellar recruiting. Several people commented on Tosan Agbeyegbe and Rodney Thomas’ play at safety, an area of particular concern given the graduation of All-Ivy caliber players at the two positions. The defensive line should be the team’s strongest position despite the loss of Copache Tyler, Earl Chism and John Herubin. We expect competition at linebacker to continue through the fall, but we were pleased with what we saw.
The offensive line seemed sluggish off the ball and had issues sustaining blocks. Given the personnel changes and a new position coach, the growing pains are unavoidable. Keep in mind that the defensive line has historically been more cohesive than the offensive line in Spring Ball over the years including last season. We didn’t see much out of the top returning wideouts (several did not play), but their routes and timing with Rawlings will only improve over the summer and fall workouts. Jimmy Check may have the potential to fill in for Rawlings in an emergency. It would have been nice to see the Blue-White Game at the end of Spring Ball this year as it was evident that the offensive players still needed a few practices under their belt to go toe to toe with the defense. On the other hand, the Bulldogs will have this week to clean up the mental mistakes and focus on an Ivy League repeat in the fall.
In other news, Yale Lacrosse defeated #2 Albany 14-6 yesterday.
8 replies on “Defense Dominates in Spring Game”
Yale Lacrosse now ranked number 1 !!!
Thought Dudek, Rawlings, Klubnick and a couple others didn’t play.
A good number of offensive weapons were shelved for the game. Most of the Oline issues were with GAP control not sustaining blocks. From what I understand a lot of these calls are made by the QB so not having Kurt behind center amplified things. Still feel pretty good about our Offense if we are healthy come September. I agree the Defense did look good which was a bigger concern with the number of departures we had.
How did Christian Sampleton play?
Foye Oluokun pick #200 in 6th round by Atlanta Falcons.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AtlantaFalcons/status/990337860925505536/video/1
gentlemen; would be interested in your thoughts regarding our blue starting offense and defense this coming fall.
I think should be powerful in the trenches again this year
The average returning Yale O Lineman in 2018 is 6’5″ 293 – think that stacks up really well against any conference – the 2016 average SEC O line was 6’4″ 305
http://www.lineprotips.com/blg/college-offensive-lineman-size
Also the D Line gave up the second lowest rushing yards per game in the FCS https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fcs/current/team/24
If Rawlings plays every game this team has many weapons on offense. It is a shame the administration and the city can’t get their act together to get the turf in place for this season. The top backs in the league will be playing on mud again, and won’t be able to showcase their skills on their home field.
On defense the key will be how relatively inexperienced DBs perform against the top tier vertical passing games we will face. There is talent moving up and in the freshmen class at DB, but who will lead and play mistake free coverage under pressure?
We have to keep Rawlings and Dudek healthy and build a cohesive defensive backfield to repeat as champions.