Zoom in to see that the old, often illegible scoreboard has been replaced! This, in addition to the bigger jumbotron installed last season will make games a lot easier to follow at Kraft Field
The team looked pretty healthy overall. Reports that star WR Bryson Canty would be held out of the game because of a sore knee turned out to only be partially true as he did get onto the field and even made a nice catch on a long pass from 5th year senior QB Caden Bell, (who, I have to say one more time, it's amazing to have him in spring camp... extremely rare for a 5th year).
Bell and sophomore A.J. Simpkins got most of the reps at QB and passed accurately. Sophomore QB James McCauley got in some reps too and looked generally seasoned. Senior Joe Green did not play.
The WR corps looks as good as advertised. In addition to Canty's play, senior Marcus Libman was solid and made a nice TD catch near the end of the scrimmage. Libman also chucked a nice option pass for a TD to Simpkins. Senior Wills Meyer looked healthy and made some great catches. Rising sophomore Edan Stagg may have made the play of the day with a great spinning run after a catch for a big gain. RAC will be a big key for the Lions this year as Catny will draw a lot of coverage and the open CU receivers on shorter routes will need to make defenses pay with big yards after the catch. Not participating was 5th year senior J.J. Jenkins who probably is off this semester in order to be eligible for the fall.
The big question mark for the team, the offensive line, looked pretty good. The first unit was Zach Mills, Braeden Bellmer, John Iannuzzi, Noah Jordan, and Ryan Carr. I believe Andrew Pruske will be one of the leaders of this unit in the fall, but as a 5th year senior he too is probably off this semester. Also not participating was LT Luke Painton, who is shifting to that crucial role from the TE position. He too is a 5th year senior. It's really hard to tell just how good this unit will be when it counts. But the mechanics look good enough for now.
RB Joey Giorgi looked great all day, and it looks like he will be a screen pass target more this fall based on the throws that went his way Saturday. That could be a key element in the Lion offense that I think longtime fans will prefer to screen passes to wide receivers.
As far as replacing Painton at TE, I thought senior Dominic Busby and junior Jack Larsen looked good at getting open. But I don't expect either of them to be a deep threat like Painton often was. That seems like a good sacrifice to make with such a talented WR crew. Throw in the Giorgi element as a receiver out of the backfield and I think the Lion passing game will be varied enough.
Malcom Terry didn't run as consistently well as Giorgi, but he showed some good moves and got the highest elevation I've ever seen from a CU running back during a leap into the end zone for a late TD.
On defense the first line on the DL was made up of Justin Townsend, Ben Corniello, John Martin, and Reid Spachman. This feels like it could be a very formidable group, with Martin and Corniello bottling up the runners and Townsend and Spachman specializing in pass rush.
The first line linebackers were C.J. Brown, Anthony Roussos, and Roco Milia.
The first line secondary were Aaron Brebnor, Seth Parker, and Hayden McDonald, and Carter McFadden.
William Hughes handled all the place kicking and punting duties. All of his kicks were with the wind, but even with that taken under consideration it's clear Hughes has the leg strength to do a lot of damage. Accuracy will be the issue, but he made most of his FG attempts and was perfect on PATs.
In addition to just not knowing how good or bad the offensive line will be, I'd say the other concern is how Bell will learn to adjust for his height. The D-Line tipped a number of his passes (not too many) and I suspect CU's opponents will be gunning to do the same very often this fall. Bell may need to roll out more and/or use that screen option to Giorgi to fight that all season long.
It feels like the real headline from Saturday is there's a really joyful feeling all around this team and program right now. It looks like Head Coach Al Bagnoli isn't retiring anytime soon, the COVID nightmare is over, and coming off two winning seasons in a row is a nice feeling. Hopefully when the full team is able to practice together this summer, some more strengths will emerge.
