The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Blazers Hold First Scrimmage Of Spring Drills
3/21/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
March 21, 2014
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ---- UAB's football team held its first scrimmage Friday morning at Legion Field as the Blazers wrapped up its fifth overall practice of the spring.
The Blazers will now be away from the field for a week for spring break before returning to the practice field on Sunday, March 30.
Overall, head coach Bill Clark was pleased with what he saw.
"Organizationally, we thought it went really good," head coach Bill Clark said. "We were getting taped at 5:00, and dressed for a 6:00 team meeting. Everybody was ready to go, ready to practice.
"We worked on a lot of things. We got to work on all of our kicking situations. We got to scrimmage for a half. It was ones against twos with all of our kicking game intermixed. Then we took a short halftime break and then we worked situations such as third downs, red zone, goal line, coming out of the goal line, two minute drills."
Clark said he thought the receivers stood out on the offensive side.
"I thought our receivers caught the ball well," he said. "We went up and made some plays. I thought we had DBs in pretty good positions, but we had receivers just go up and make plays. Offensively, we put the ball on the ground a few times and we want zero. The urgency of ball protection, ball security, that's important.
"I thought our special teams looked really good. I think Ty Long hit about a 50 or 53-yard field goal. That was big. I thought our special teams looked really good. Hunter (Mullins) punted the ball well.
Clark also assessed what he saw from the UAB defense.
"Defensively, I saw improvement. I think we're getting better. I think with the way we practice, it's so hard to say, `you can't tackle the quarterback, it's two-hand tag. You never have tackled the running back (in other practices), but we go to the scrimmage, you get to tackle him to the ground.' Sometimes, that creates a little bit of hesitation. But we tell our defense, `that's no excuse.' We've got to take this defense and make it the defense we want. That's not going to happen overnight, but I saw improvement."
UAB will hold their annual spring game Friday, April 18 at West Campus Field.
For the latest news on Blazer sports, follow the UAB Athletics Twitter account: @UABAthletics. For football news, follow @UAB_Football and @CoachBillClark.
