Scrimmage No. 2 awaits

FRESNO, Calif. – With the second scrimmage of fall training camp looming for the Fresno State football team, the players and staff alike know that this is when the dominos start to fall and playing time can be won and lost. Saturday morning at Bulldog Stadium, for what will be the 19th official practice of the 29 allotted to prepare for the season opener at Nebraska, it will be time to put on display another weeks' worth of preparation.

"We're starting to hone in on getting our ones and twos set in each position," said head coach Tim DeRuyter. "After this scrimmage, you'd like to have your two-deep fairly set. There will still be room for flexibility in some positions that aren't clear, but you hope that'll become clear after this weekend."

That will start with the offense and the quarterback position. The second week of fall camp saw both Chason Virgil and Zach Kline sharing reps with the first-team, although Virgil took a greater majority of them.

At last week's scrimmage, Virgil's slow start was abruptly halted thanks to back-to-back 20-yard-plus touchdown throws to Delvon Hardaway and Jamire Jordan, respectively. Virgil was 8-of-15 for 121 yards, along with two TD tosses against one interception. Kline on the other hand was efficient, but did not account for much offense, going 9-of-12 for 69 yards.

"Anyone who has pride and you didn't play as well as you hoped, you ought to come out the next time and play better and that's what our offense did," DeRuyter noted about the team's first practice following scrimmage No. 1. "When the offense came back to practice on Monday, they got after it during the live drills, and that was a great response."

Despite the offense sputtering a bit at last Saturday's scrimmage, the coaches were still satisfied with the group of five on the O-line. But the question mark is who is going to be ready to be the next man up. As practice played out this week, Logan Hughes appears to have a chance to be that next man in, and converted defensive lineman Nick Aibuedefe flashed, but nothing is set.

"We're looking for the best seven or eight guys to put on the offensive line," said DeRuyter. "We haven't locked anyone in yet. I feel that our first five are pretty much settled in, but we need those extra guys to prove that they can be in the rotation and not have a dramatic drop off."

Other positions groups that the coaches will be looking at is who will be next in line to back up the Bulldogs veteran secondary. It will also be a chance for the linebackers group to get some extra reps before mainstays Jeff Camilli and Nela Otukolo return from injury.

"We'll be looking at some back up safeties and corners to emerge tomorrow," DeRuyter said. "I'm also hoping to get Jeff [Camilli] in there at inside linebacker for a few snaps, we'll get Nela [Outkolo] and Trent [Soechting] in there next week so we should be ok there."

Saturday will also be about playing with instincts. The staff tried to prepare the team during the second week of practice with simulated game situations such as responding to a turnover, playing with a tied score and limited time remaining, playing with no timeouts, and hitting a field goal with the pressure of the entire team being punished with up-downs if the strike is missed – all points to strengthen the team mentally.

"You hope you are playing twice as fast as you played last week," DeRuyter expressed about Saturday's upcoming scrimmage. "We haven't had very significant installations, so the guys have been practicing faster, but now you have an actual opportunity to have live reps. I hope to see our offensive tempo go up, and I hope our defense plays at the same level like last week, to force the offense to make plays with the football. We are also going to work our special teams in some live periods again and I believe we have dramatically improved there, and to get live reps validates it."

Stay tuned to GoBulldogs.com and all the team's social media outlets for results and reactions from Saturday's closed scrimmage. The team will have Sunday off as well as Monday for the first day of classes, before returning to the practice field on Tuesday.

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Fresno State Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Nick Aibuedefe

Jeff Camilli

Delvon Hardaway

Logan Hughes

Jamire Jordan

Zach Kline

Nela Otukolo

Chason Virgil

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