More from Wednesday's scrimmage

Despite Bronco Mendenhall’s disappointment overall with Wednesday’s scrimmage, he did offer some good news. He’s pleased with the way his team has performed as fall camp wraps up.
‘We feel like we have a really good team. I think it’s the farthest any team has been since I’ve been the coach,” he said. “I think we’ve accomplished the goals and objectives that we had set out and I feel good about our team knowing that we’re as healthy as we’ve ever been. We’re as talented as we’ve ever been. Our execution is solid. Right now, my hope was, after today, I’d feel better about our depth. But that’s not what I feel. The players in front of them, I feel very good about.’

Here’s what Mendenhall had to say about his impressions of the scrimmage.
‘The intent, first of all, was to allow every 2, 3 or 4 on our team to play and show exactly where they stand. I was disappointed, would be the overall reaction ‘ of not only knowledge of assignment, execution and effort overall. My hope was that I would see guys that we’d have to be saying, ‘We have to consider this player to play now and possibly move him up.’ What I saw in general was, a lack of readiness. Not only offensively and defensively there were drop-offs from our 1′s. Our special teams dropped off even more than that with a few key players so poor in fundamentals and assignments that we couldn’t function.’

Blake Morgan, Landon Jaussi and Matt Marshall each had punt blocks. Said Mendenhall of those blocks: ‘It’s disappointing. Especially when those are our backups. So if a player goes down and one of those players was in the game, you certainly don’t want to see it on game day. The best thing that happened was, we saw it today, with a week-and-a-half to go. Either it’s the wrong player in the wrong spot or it’s the right player blocking it that we haven’t considered yet.’

Mendenhall added that there were a few bright spots from the scrimmage and that it was worth the effort. ‘If it uncovered a punt blocker, if it uncovered a running back or a receiver or another defensive back, then it was worth the format today. There might be some positives to come out of it.’

As mentioned in a previous blog, Austin Collie looks to be closer to being game-ready. He said if the opener was today, he’d be ready to play. Mendenhall said Collie could be ready to participate in live drills as early as Friday. The coach
plans to play him at receiver and, possibly, kick returner as well in the opener.
‘I’d just as soon have him play (against No. Iowa),” Mendenhall said. “The more I learn about Northern Iowa, the more impressed I am. So as soon as we can get Austin back and play him and back into the fold, I think the better. The injury has set him back in terms of conditioning. But we’ll look to use him every way possible that matches his readiness.’
Collie said being sidelined during fall camp “is a big deal. You want to get in sync with the entire offense and the entire team. There’s a brotherhood there that’s very important to have before going into the season. Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity. Hopefully we can take off in the first game and go from there.’
Asked about his timing with quarterback Max Hall, Collie said, “It took one throw and we’re back on it.”
During fall camp, Collie has been getting up at 6:30 every morning to run and swim.
In fact, he’s been spending a lot of time in the pool.
‘I was talking to the swim coach and told him I was swimming 900 to 1,000 yards a day,” Collie said. “I said, ‘If you need me, let me know.’ I was just joking around with him. He said, ‘Well, you have to do a little bit more than that.’ I asked him how much and he said, ‘The swim team swims about 10 miles a day.’ I was only doing about a half-mile. It humbled me a little bit.’

One thing that Mendenhall wishes he could have referees at every practice, not just every scrimmage. ‘It’s probably one of the biggest failures I’ve had as the head coach. I think it’s reflected in clean play or lack of clean play early in the year. I’ve addressed it the best way I know how. Any time those guys (referees) show up, I’m appreciative. I encourage them to throw more flags than necessary so we can teach and they can feel the impact of mistakes that happen on the field. I never feel like we’ve had enough. If they were there every day from the beginning to the end of camp, I’d feel like we’d had enough.’

Mendenhall on the defense: ‘I feel good about them. I don’t see any significant difference right now from this defense to last year’s or the year before. Certainly, it’s logical to say they’re inexperienced and young and it will take them awhile. But when you look at the leadership of Fowler, Bauman, Nixon, Jorgensen, I think it will end up being another good defense. I don’t think it will take as long as what most expect. I think we’re on track.’