By Bruce Wood
www.biggreenalert.com
Hanover -- Chris Wielgus, Dartmouth's tremendously successful women's basketball coach, often portrays her sport as one of "alternating currents."
Football coach Buddy Teevens stole a page from his coaching colleague after Saturday's skelly passing drill and 65-play scrimmage.
"It was back and forth this week," Teevens said. "Today the defense was really geared up and played with emotion. It was a little bit of a payback opportunity from the last scrimmage situation. It's as I told the guys, this happens in a ballgame. There's an ebb and a flow."
Ebb and flow or alternating currents. Whatever you want to call it, the defense dominated the scrimmage action in the early going -- with help from several fumbled snaps and passes that went awry -- before the offense found a little bit of its rhythm.
Tom Bennewitz was under center with the first unit to start the scrimmage action, but a fumbled snap sent that group back to the sidelines on the opening play.
Incumbent start Josh Cohen then came on with the second unit, completing a short pass to Eric Paul, but he headed to the sideline one snap later when Milan Williams was stopped short of a first down.
Then it was Mike Fritz' turn and he went three-and-out with help from a no-gain tackle by defensive end Jack D'Angelo on second down and a sack by Dan Cook on third down.
The second series for each quarterback went no better as linebacker Taylor Babcock picked off Bennewitz' first pass, Cohen was handicapped by consecutive problems on the center-QB exchange before an overthrow on third down and Fritz went three-and-out again when Rehan Muttalib smelled out a screen and stopped Dan Siegfried for no gain.
"The nice thing was that there wasn't a rattle mindset" on the part of the offense, Teevens said. "It was, 'OK, let's just do our stuff.' And then it kicked in and they started to make a few plays.
"I thought the QB's pressed and forced some balls, especially some deep balls when they should have come underneath and that disrupts a drive."
Midway through the scrimmage action the offenses began to make plays. Williams broke off a 33-yard gain for the morning's initial first down and Bennewitz hit 3-of-4 passes on the first sustained drive.
On the next series, Jason Bash ripped off a 15-yarder and Williams an 11-yarder as Fritz directed a drive that collected three first downs.
The first points of the day came after Cohen found Ryan Fuselier for 45 yards to the plus-35 and then hit Sam McDonald for 15 yards. Andrew von Kuhn got the TD on a 6-yard strike from Cohen with Erik Estabrook nailing the PAT.
Fritz hit four passes in the next drive, capped by Andrew Seidman's 1-yard run for a TD. That PAT came off low and was blocked by the middle of the line.
Despite several penalties, Cohen had the offense moving again on the final march of the day before another fumbled snap signaled an end of the action.
While the play was uneven -- particularly on the offensive side, Teevens was relatively upbeat when the practice broke up.
"I thought Milan looked pretty good," he said. "Eric Paul had a good day catching some passes. Sammy Mac (McDonald) caught some. Andrew von Kuhn. Fuse (Ryan Fuselier) got the long one. It was nice to see him stick a post and us have success with a long ball, which we haven't done a whole lot of.
"Defensively I thought our linebacking crew tackled better. As a defense we tackled more efficiently. We had more pressure on the passer than we have demonstrated. That's been a big push up front. (Chris) Blanco and (John) Manning in the secondary played OK. It was nice to have John Pircon back at safety (from a finger injury). He's a pretty savvy guy back there."
Also earning a nod from Teevens: center Elliott Dial. "He doesn't always get notice but he's playing guard and center for us and is doing areal nice job."
Although he would have liked more offensive production early, Teevens was pleased with the way that side of the ball hung together.
"Fumbling the first snap is not a good tone to set but the guys did rebound," he said. "After 30 plays some of the guys were kind of hanging their heads. I told them, 'That's a third of a game. Maybe a half. So you have to come back and they did.
"We shuffled it. The twos and the ones sort of rotated back and forth after that. The execution was cleaner and the second offense moved the ball against the first defense. Then the first defense came back and it was like, 'Hey, we're back.' "
The ebb and flow will continue Monday in the final week of spring practice that will be capped Saturday by the Green & White scrimmage. Teevens hasn't yet firmed up the format for the event, but given just three quarterbacks and a small contingent of running backs, it's doubtful he'll conduct it as a real game. More likely: the offense against the defense.
NOTES: "We came away uninjured except for (Dan) Siegfried rolling his ankle," Teevens said. "It was a little scary when Milan went down on the sideline but he just knocked his kneecap."
With Siegfried questionable, Hudson Smythe battling a hamstring, Nate Servis in a yellow vest and Chad Gaudet unavailable, Teevens is running short on healthy backs as the spring winds up.
"That's fine," he said. "We'll just throw it a little more. That will be good for everybody."
Here are some extremely unofficial statistics:
Passing
Tom Bennewitz 6-10--34 yards, 1 int
Josh Cohen 7-11--100 yards, 1 td
Mike Fritz 5-7--53 yards
Leading Receivers
Eric Paul 4-48
Brett Lowe 2-24
Chris Collado 2-15
Andrew von Kuhn 2-12, 1 td
Ryan Fuselier 1-45
Leading Rushers
Milan Williams 8-66 (not counting a 70-plus TD called back)
Jason Bash 5-17
Dan Siegfried 6-10
Andrew Seidman 4-9 1 td
PATs
Erik Estabrook 1-2 (1 blocked)
There was also a "pass skelly" with tackling. Numbers for that:
Passing
Bennewitz 4-7, 79 yards
Cohen 2-7, 21 yards
Fritz 5-7, 70 yards
Receiving
Paul 3-63
Sam McDonald 2-37
Williams 2-25
Chris Collado 2-24
Zack Cable 2-21
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