Northwestern University Athletics
Quick Hitters: April 2 Spring Scrimmage Edition
4/2/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 2, 2011
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
• The 'Cats most-renowned wide receiver is Jeremy Ebert. But he has a tender hammy and so did not play in their Saturday scrimmage, the first of the spring. Another of their formidable weapons is the superback Drake Dunsmore. But he too is nursing a slight injury and so was another who merely viewed. They can also unleash Venric Mark and Tony Jones and Rashad Lawrence and that trio of sophomore speedsters were very much part of the morning's festivities. But their most impressive receiver here was Charles Brown, the understated senior out of Robeson High School who had three catches for 57 yards and a touchdown.
"I think Charles, if I was to name an MVP of spring, it's him. He's had a really good spring," 'Cat coach Pat Fitzgerald later enthused. "If we shut it down today, he's the MVP. I think I said that at the end of the first week. He's being really vocal. He's being real fast. And he's taking advantage of the opportunity. Heck. He's in the rotation right now. He's having a great spring."
Where's he made his biggest jump, we wondered.
"I think he's just having fun, I really do. He's been a player for us. How many catches does he have in his career? Close to 50? (Actally, 36.) And then he's been a phenomenal special teams player for us. So he's had roles. It's hasn't been 90 catches, All-Big Ten. But he's got the skill set to do that. I'm fired up to watch him. Like I said, he's having a great spring. Everyday, he's made played. Everyday, he's played physical. So what am I saying? He's been consistent and to me that's really encouraging. I'm excited about him."
• Brown's lips were quivering as he stopped to talk ("I'm cold," he would admit) and so the chat would be brief. "I view it as an opportunity to get better, to just keep working on my technique and become a better receiver," he said of Ebert's injury. "I'm just stepping up. Once a guy goes down, I've got to step up to the call like any receiver in the room."
"It's always about having fun when you're playing football," he said of his successful scrimmage. "I've been playing for so long, it's all I know. Playing football and having fun."
Then we wondered if he ever feels overlooked as all the chatter centers on Ebert and Dunsmore and the sophomore speedsters.
"When I'm called on to play, when my number's called, I just try and make a play," he said in his best under-stated manner. "I really don't get caught up too much in that other stuff."
And who wins a race between him and Mark?
"It depends on the distance," chuckled Brown, who ran on the 4X100, 4X200 and 4X400 relays teams at Robeson. "He might get me in the 40."
• That was some serious business the 'Cats conducted on Saturday, a fact that is often reinforced by tales of illegal payments to players and of chicanery at the Fiesta Bowl and of other misdeeds now mottling the landscape. But Brown used the word fun when describing his day, which should remind us that football is still a game, and Fitzgerald dropped that word more than once, which gives us a hint to the approach he favors.
Consider, for one example, his response to a question about the young 'uns on his team. "I think they're just learning," he said. "What I told them before we came out, typically in the first scrimmage, the young ones are afraid to fail, afraid to do something wrong. So I wanted to make sure the last thing they heard from me was just go out there and have some fun and let us coach you. I thought they did that for the most part today. I thought they cut it loose, I thought it was a pretty physical day."
We wondered if that exhortation applied especially to quarterback Evan Watkins, who often appears more serious than a tax audit.
"I don't think its just an issue for Evan, it's an issue for every young guy," he replied. "I think it's compounded at the quarterback position, I really do. If you're a guard and can take the wrong step, you can still hold the guy and get away with it. But, at quarterback, it is what it is. You've got to be able to manage, execute and all eyes are on you. Especially in the situation he unfortunately fell into last year, he falls under a lot of scrutiny. I think he's handling really well, I think he's working hard to get better. He's in a very competitive situation right now. . . It's a work in progress. We're in practice. We're not in a game. We don't have a game plan in. We have installation in."
• Asked about his day, Watkins referenced fun's twin when he said: "I just came out here and tried to cut it loose a little bit and not think so much. It feels better."
• Dan Persa, of course, was another who merely watched the scrimmage, where the quarterback reps were split equally among Watkins and Kain Colter and redshirt freshman Trevor Siemian. Each had his moments, both good and bad, and of them Fitzgerald would later say: "I thought they were fine. They're a work in progress, you know. They just need to continue to grow in their leadership. But I think today they were out making playing, today they were just out executing plays. I want to see more leadership from them, being more of the guys going in and taking things over. I thought I saw it coming on as it went along. But we tried to make the reps even today. So it's kind of hard when it's six plays and rotate, six plays and rotate. It's hard to get momentum going. Thinking back to early in my career, that was really hard. It's especially hard at that position."
• Among the nuggets dropped by Watkins after the scrimmage was this. "I know the coaches, they want to have a guy named the starter as-of-now coming out of spring ball. We're battling for it."
True, we asked Fitzgerald, who had indicated no such thing when speaking of his quarterbacks earlier this week?
"No. No. They don't know what they're talking about," he said with a chuckle. "That's why they're called players and I'm called a coach. They want that and maybe they will, maybe someone will separate. But if that's going to happen, somebody's going to have to separate himself and at this point that has not happened. It has not happened."
• Junior superback Brett Nagel suffered what appeared to be a serious right arm injury during the scrimmage.
• And finally: Fitzgerald slapped a game misconduct on defensive end Quentin Williams and booted him from the scrimmage some 30 minutes before its end. "He loved tapped (tackle) Neal Deiters," he explained. "You can't do that. He lost his cool a little bit."
Scrimmage Stats (April 2, 2011)
RUSHING -- Tyris Jones 9-36; Colter 6-26; A. Smith 6-11, 2 TD's; Team 1-0; Trumpy 4-7; Kurzawski 4-7; Watkins 2-(4); Siemian 4-(6).
PASSING -- Siemian 9-12-0, 131 yds., 2 TD's; Watkins 8-14-0, 66 yds.; Colter 5-6-0, 62 yds.
RECEIVING -- Mark 6-90; C. Brown 3-57, 1 TD; Jensen 4-46, 1 TD; D. Fields 4-20; Lawrence 2-15; Trumpy 1-23; Barber 1-4; Dupper 1-4.
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