Tommy Bowden on Spring Game

by TigerNet Staff - Wed Apr 05 22:58:01 GMT-04:00 2006

Bowden on Saturday’s spring game format.

“The spring game will be more like a game. I don’t know to what extent on the kicking, but I will divide the teams up now with this team versus this team and make it a little more fan friendly than I have in the past.

I talked to the seniors the other day and they said they wanted to do it. When I first came here I had to get a lot done and I wanted to use it partially fan friendly and partially as a fifteenth practice. Last year, I really needed to use it as a fifteenth practice. Now that I have had another year, I will change it a little bit and make it more player friendly and fan friendly as far as game type.”

Bowden on how the team will be divided.

“We will meet in the morning and talk about it.”

Will the new format mess up the continuity of certain players?

“It messes up that a little bit, but I think we are just going to try and make it fan friendly and players like it. It makes things a little more competitive so we’re going to do it like that.”

On what he wants to see Saturday.

I like to see it injury free. When you have an injury now there is a guy in there that hasn’t worked a lot because you have a first team tackle and a second team tackle and then you have a second team tackle and a third team tackle so now you’re stuck with a third teamer instead of your third tackle or second teamer. We will have to limit what we can do so I would like to see it injury free and I like to see guys make plays. That’s one thing I think you should be able to see is plays being made. Catches hits, interceptions, sacks and things of that nature.”

On how the defense responded.

"They did good. You don’t know how a team is going to respond. You hope you know and you think you know, but you don’t until you go out there and play. I was kind of pleased with how we responded today.

We still didn’t go out there and dominate. Offensively, they are at a stage right now where that is going to be awfully difficult to do, but they went out there and perfumed better than they did Saturday."

How much got done this spring?

"We got a lot done and about as much as we possibly could this spring. We are going to go out in shorts on Friday and divide up a little bit you know and go over the teams so we can do a little bit of kicking with different personnel. I think we got done as much as we could. Now, I will have to see how productive it is next year when we play.

Weather was cooperative. We didn’t get rained out and have to go inside. Injures we kept at a minimal fortunately."

Notes:

- Walk-on and former soccer player Mark Buckholtz made four field goals - two 50-yarders and two 35-yarders while Jad Dean missed about all of his. Buckholtz is also working at punter.

- Offensive lineman Barry Humphries scrimmaged on Wednesday after missing some practice time with an injury.

- Wide receiver Jacoby Ford will probably play in the Spring game.