INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A 90-minute lightning delay couldn’t stop University of South Florida (or its fans), which held its first football scrimmage of the season Saturday at Vero Beach Sports Village.
An estimated 600 spectators looked on, as the Bull ran what second-year head coach Skip Holtz estimated to be 112 plays from scrimmage.
“I was really proud with the attitude of the team, coming out here under a little added adversity after being inside for about an hour and a half,” Holtz said. “They came back out here and didn’t let it drag, they were up-tempo and they worked really hard. The attitude was great and the hitting was great.”
The projected starters on offense and defense played sparingly during the scrimmage, but this was completely by design. The scrimmage’s purpose was to help Holtz and the coaching staff build a depth chart over the weekend.
“The (starters) only got about 11 or 12 plays today, and the (second and third string) each got about 45 or 50,” Holtz said. “We have to make some decisions on our depth chart, and make some decisions on who we start working with. This scrimmage will go a long way in determining that. There were a lot of great individual efforts out there-there’s some talent on that field, I’m just really excited to put it all together.”
To Holtz, the most important part of the entire weekend was putting together a depth chart. He plans on posting the depth chart Monday morning before the day’s two-a-day practice.
“We’ll grade (the scrimmage) tonight, we’ll watch it again tomorrow, and then we’ll start to put the depth chart together,” Holtz said. “Then hopefully on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we’ll have great practices.”
Although Holtz was generally happy with his team’s play, he felt there were too many penalties, too many loss-yardage plays by the offense, and too many big passes given up by the defense. That said, he’s using the scrimmage as an evaluator of personnel rather than as a barometer of play execution.
“Today wasn’t about putting the offense and defense together, today was about making some personnel decisions so we can start getting things ready for the season,” Holtz said. “The best way to sit down and evaluate personnel is to sit down there and evaluate film, watch those steps and fundamentals, and make sure they are doing all of the little things right when we are making our evaluation.”
The Bulls will enjoy their only day off in Vero Beach tomorrow, before practicing four times through Monday (8:40 p.m. and again at 7:10 p.m.), Tuesday (5:40 p.m.) and Wednesday (10:40 p.m.).
Their first game of the season is September 3 at Notre Dame, Holtz’s alma mater. His father, Lou, famously led the Fighting Irish to the last of their 11 national titles in 1988.
