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Wednesday, April 25, 2007 1:12 AM CDT
Bragging rights on the line for EIU football
BY BRIAN NIELSEN Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON – Forget the old dinner bets between Eastern Illinois football coaches.
“The loser never pays anyway so it was a futile bet,” defensive coordinator Roc Bellantoni said.
Still, today’s last spring scrimmage of EIU’s spring football practice is to have a wining unit when the offense goes against the defense at 4 p.m. at O’Brien Stadium.
Rather than the player draft for an intrasquad game using conventional scoring as has been done in recent years, Eastern is using a point system to spice the competition in today’s windup of spring drills.
Playing four 15-mintue quarters, the offense in addition to the usual six points for a touchdown, regular PATs and three points for a field goal is to be awarded one point for each first down and two points for an play over 20 yards.
The defense is to get one point by forcing a punt or a fourth-down stop, three points for any punt after just three plays and six points for a turnover.
“It’s going to be something different than what we’ve done before,” Bellantoni said. “We just wanted to make it a little more fun for the kids rather than just another regular scrimmage. With the numbers and our late start, it just didn’t work out this year to have the regular game with a player draft as we’ve done in the past.”
While players might look to this game as bragging rights throughout their summer conditioning workouts, coaches see other priorities.
“I just want to execute and not turn the ball over,” said Jorge Munoz, the quarterbacks coach the past two years now taking over the offensive coordinator title. We just want to leave healthy, get some game experience, get some reps but come out healthy.”
Accordingly, substitutes are to get their chance although no set guidelines for first and second units are established.
“Each side will rotate as they see fit,” Munoz said. “We’ll rotate quarterbacks in. We may just go equal amount. Just so long as we’re gaining experience. You’ve got to go play.”
Cole Stinson returns as Eastern’s starting quarterback with junior-to-be Kyle Kniss and sophomore Bodie Reeder challenging this spring before freshman Luke Hockaday of Class 2A state champion Maroa-Forsyth enters the picture in August.
Bellantoni plans to limit the plays for his returning stars like Ohio Valley Conference Defensive Player of the Year Donald Thomas and others so he can evaluate others.
“No. 1, I want to get out as healthy as humanly possible,” the defensive coordinator said. “But also I want the new starters to get a game experience. There are some minor things that we want to improve on schematically. But mainly we want to stay healthy.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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