Noles Hold First Scrimmage Of Spring

FSU Sports Information Excerpts:

Saturday’s full pad scrimmage couldn’t have come any sooner for the Seminole football team. After busting at the seams to hit someone on Friday, the squad finally got to go full contact on Saturday as the first full scrimmage of the spring took place inside Doak Campbell Stadium.

The FSU football team went through a two-hour scripted scrimmage and will now take Sunday off bringing the first week of spring practice to a close.

Head Coach Bobby Bowden
Opening statement:“I thought it was a good first scrimmage. They did better than I really thought they would for the first scrimmage. Defense did better than I thought they would do today. I thought we got some good things done.”

On the play of Ponder:

“I think we are getting some pretty good catches out there. I thought Ponder threw good today. He made some very nice throws. If you can protect him, he can do it. I thought the protection was pretty good, you know.”

Offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher
On the offense:
“Not bad. I loved the intensity. I loved the aggressiveness. Of course we made some mistakes here and there. For the most part I liked what we were doing. Like I say, a few plays you wish you had back, you try to make but that is kind of where you expect to be right now. Get the kinks out but I love the intensity. I love the effort. I like the direction we are going, thought I saw some good things out there.”

On Ponder’s performance:
“Really nice. Stepped up two or three times and made some good throws. Only ran when he really had to run. I thought his pocket presence, so far in the spring…and I think that is a tribute to two things. I think our offensive line is doing a pretty good job and our backs.”

Defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews
On the defense:
“We gave up too many long runs, too many long passes. We had 50 missed assignments. We got folks who won’t fight for the ball. We won’t finish plays. There wasn’t much out there that looked like defense.”

“There wasn’t much that resembled football. Looked like we still had shorts on. You don’t play football with shorts on. We could go out here and make excuses. It is the first time we tackled but we are not going to make excuses. We are going to get better.”