Oregon St. is halfway through spring drills, and Saturday's action saw some actual scrimmaging, with officials. The Beavers ran 24 plays in a couple of different segments.
"That was a good first scrimmage with the number of linemen when have," coach Mike Riley said. "There were 24 plays, and the main thing was to let them finish the plays, defense tackle and blocking all the way through to the end."
Afterwords, Riley summed things up after the sunny day's work.
Junior CB Rashaad Reynolds and redshirt freshman WR Richard Mullaney were the standouts of the afternoon, while several key contributors were unable to participate.
RB Storm Woods suffered a concussion in Thursday's practice, and WR Micah Hatfield has been out all week with a concussion. Woods had been making himself impressive prior to suffering the concussion.
KR/CB Malcolm Marable and TE Colby Prince sat out Saturday with hamstring problems, and RB Malcolm Agnew pulled out of the scrimmage with hamstring tightness as well.
With Riley taking a direct hand in both defensive positioning and offensive play calling, its been the defense that has been ahead for the most part. A number of interceptions have been turned in at the expense of both presumed starter Sean Mannion and backup Cody Vaz.
DEs Scott Crichton and Dylan Wynn and their speed in particular seem to be causing a lot of problems for the depleted offensive line.
Rehabbing starters including WR Jordan Bishop and S Anthony Watkins have been working out in spring drills to the extent their recovery allows, though they are just spectators for the contact action. Bishop does appear to be well on his way to recovery from the broken bone in his foot and subsequent surgery, and Watkins, who has been able to run but not lift, is close to recovered from shoulder surgery as well.
"I'll be full speed real soon," Watkins said. "I'll just do what I can to get myself right so I can play at 100 percent."
Senior RB Jovan Stevenson, originally not expected to be able to participate in spring drills, has also returned to action earlier than expected.
However, it does not appear that DT Castro Masaniai will be seeing much activity of any kind until summer camp.
Practice resumes Monday, and will continue 4 days a week for 2 more weeks, concluding with Fan Fest and some scrimmaging Saturday April 28.
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo,com