The BG News

BG Football Spring Game- Analysis of QB and RB positions and then some

By Colin Wilson on April 22nd, 2007

A lot of questions are usually answered in the annual Spring Game for college football teams. Some years the coaching staff needs extra time though. This year the running back and quarterback positions were both big question marks heading into the game. Now that it’s over, I think they’re even bigger.

At QB there are three possible candidates, two are young and mostly inexperienced and the other is a veteran.

Anthony Turner- He’s had a checkered past at BG. He filled in for Omar Jacobs two seasons ago as a red-shirt freshman. When Omar declared for the draft, Turner was kind of thrown into the fire. Shortly after that, he got into some trouble and was suspended for the first game of the 2006 season. When he came back, Turner led the Falcons to a big win against Buffalo and his year was like a roller-coaster after that.
I don’t want to call him inconsistent, but he didn’t always know whether or not he wanted to run the ball a lot. Some games he was a threat, others he was not. Saturday, Turner looked all right. He really didn’t get a lot of reps. Maybe this was because they know what he can do, but he didn’t really get a chance to showcase himself. His one interception looked like a total miscommunication between Turner and his receiver because there was no white jersey in the area where Jahmal Brown intercepted it.

Tyler Sheehan- He’s supposedly the No. 1 quarterback right now. A strong arm is probably his best asset at this point. Like any young guy, he takes risks and that’s where his two interceptions came from. He overthrew a couple of open guys but he did show a lot of chemistry with BG’s most important receiver Corey Partridge who had 10 catches for 96 yards.
Sheehan’s biggest problems are holding on to the ball too long and turning it over. He’s got a lot of upside though if he gets around those things.

Anthony Glaud- He was 5-of-6 and hit Marques Parks for a nice 29-yard reception in the first half. I’m guessing he would really have to do something special to grab the No. 1 spot, but he looked good Saturday. He ran for a touchdown and looked composed.

Tony Hunter- He threw one pass near the end of the game. It was an incompletion but I’ll vouch for him, his receiver got grabbed a bit. The throw was good.

The situation is an interesting one. I’d personally start AT. He’s got the experience and he’s played well before. Sheehan has little experience and he hasn’t made plays in games yet. I like his upside, but if AT starts the year and doesn’t look good, then you have a viable option in Sheehan. If you put AT in the No. 2 spot, you’re putting his confidence at risk and he may not respond well. Although when he spoke with the media afterwards he just said it motivated him more.

The running backs were the opposite. While the quarterbacks didn’t stand out from one another, the running backs all looked great. Dan Macon has definitely recovered from his ankle problems from last season. He ran for 86 yards on 18 carries and was hitting holes pretty efficiently. That’s huge for the Falcons to have three solid options.

Chris Bullock also looked good. He had 87 yards on 18 carries and broke some tackles. He’s more of a north-south type runner and can pick up a yard when they need him to.

JuCo transfer Eric Ransom has good speed and was also pretty decent. He had 52 yards on 14 carries and a touchdown.

I think you can rotate carries with the three of these guys and be successful. They all have different things that they’re good at. Not a lot of MAC teams have the option of a third down type back and a short yardage option. We can’t forget the importance of Pete Winovich in this conversation either. He added a different wrinkle last season and surprised a lot of defenses when he got the ball last season.

Sinisa Vrvillo literally kicked butt. He made all three of his field goal attempts and I think a lot of fans may be keeping their Sean Ellis jerseys after all (because Vrvillo also wears No. 41).

Overall, I think it’s an improved team. Do I think they’ll win the MAC? Not really. I do think they’ll win more games though. They took a step in the right direction this offseason.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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