Thursday, August 30, 2007

Observations from Yale-Princeton

A long blog for a long day of football.

-- Brandt Hollander sprained his ankle on the second play of the actual scrimamge, but will be fine. He was pretty loose after the game, more impressed with the fact that he could get an X-ray at the Bowl. He said if it was a regular-season game he would have returned to play.

-- No surprise here, Mike McLeod had just four carries in the actual scrimmage. No reason to have him in much more than that.

-- Princeton did what most teams will do this year: dare Yale to throw the ball by committing themselves to the run. Yale missed a few opportunities for long balls it will need to connect on during the regular season. Langston Johnson was wide open in the middle of the field, but the pass was overthrown. He scores if the pass is there.

-- Yale will use its tight ends a lot more this season and should with Johnson and John Sheffield.

-- Sophomore DB Paul Rice can hit. The Bowl was empty, but Rice had one pop Thursday that just echoed.

-- Yale's defense gave up too many big rushing plays, but it basically comes down to wrapping people up.

-- Quarterback Ryan Fodor solidified his spot at No. 2. He did a nice job on Yale's scoring drive, showing a lot of poise and good footwork to avoid a sack, roll to his right and find Ken Ebeling for a 17-yard touchdown on 3rd-and-12. He could have forced something earlier, or simply gotten rid of the ball, but showed good maturity. Fodor was 5-for-8 for 67 yards.

-- Richie Scudellari (who is also holding for field goals and extra points) was 5-for-8 for 71 yards.

-- Matt Kelleher was 6-for-14 for 90 yards with an interception. He showed hints of why he was a big-time catch for Yale out of Southington, where he set a state record for passing yardage. But he also showed that he hasn't played a lot of quarterback over the past year because of injuries. Siedlecki had a long talk with him after he was intercepted in the end zone while driving Yale. Siedlecki then put Kelleher back in for the next series, obviously trying to build his confidence.

-- Yale had a tough time with its punting game, but sophomore Tom Mante started slow last year as well, then came on strong as the season went on.

-- Andrew Liyana had a nice game defensively, with a fumble recovery and interception.

-- Sophomore Ricardo Galvez looked pretty sharp in second half in junior varsity session. He had 16 carries for 71 yards.

-- First look at John Pagliaro Jr. One carry for 5 yards.

-- Freshman quarterback Brook Hart, the younger brother of Brady Hart, from State College has a gun for an arm. He's a lefty and a strong kid.

-- The Yale freshmen stopped Princeton on 3rd down and 4th down from the 1 to end the game.

-- Bill Foran was 8-for-9 for 111 yards for Princeton.

-- Jeff's younger brother Greg Mroz was 9-for-13 for 75 yards.

-- Kenny Gunter had some nice runs for Princeton.

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