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FRESNO – Three weeks away from the first game of the 2016 season, the Fresno State Bulldogs took to the field at Bulldog Stadium to give fans their first look at the team.
As dozens of fans sat in the seats in hopes of seeing what the quarterback situation would be, early on, they were treated to a nice showing by the defense.
Causing the pocket to collapse on multiple occasions, the Bulldogs defense flushed quarterbacks Chason Virgil and Zach Kline out of the pocket on multiple occasions.
The first such occasion saw Virgil scamper for about 20 yards.
Shortly after the run, Virgil would look to use his legs again to let his receivers find some room down the field, but sophomore safety DeShawn Potts stepped in front of the Virgil pass for an interception.
“He hadn’t had a turnover all camp,” defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward before Potts’ interception in the scrimmage. “It’s big that he picked the ball off because it gives you confidence that you can continue to (build from).”
Fresno State’s defense kept the pressure up on the quarterbacks throughout the scrimmage and later it was freshman quarterback Quentin Davis who fell prey to the Bulldogs defense.
Davis was rolling out to his left in an attempt to keep a play alive and let a throw loose toward a receiver on the sideline.
Cornerback Mike Bell stepped in front of that pass and sprinted down the sideline for a touchdown that ignited the Bulldogs wearing white on the visitors sideline.
Fresno State head coach Tim DeRuyter thought his defense came out to play early in the scrimmage.
“I thought our defense came out really physical, ran around well, created some takeaways,” DeRuyter said. “Mike Bell made a big play, I think DeShawn Potts had an interception, we created a takeaway on special teams. Guys were playing inspired.”
As Fresno State’s defense was turning heads early on, the offense began to get things going shortly after.
DeRuyter rotated all four quarterbacks into the scrimmage to give them reps, but as the scrimmage went on, the reps started tilting more toward Virgil and Kline.
The two showed mobility in the pocket with the ability to extend plays or take off on their own when needed.
Virgil and Kline also displayed the ability to stay in the pocket and run through their progressions to find open receivers down the field.
Kline would connect with wide receivers Delvon Hardaway and Darrell Fuery on a couple of occasions.
Hardaway would also establish a bond with Virgil as the two connected for a nice touchdown pass in the seam. Virgil would then build some consistency with sophomore KeeSean Johnson in the passing game before throwing for a second touchdown later in the scrimmage.
Dejonte O’Neal was the focal point for most of the day in the running attack as the Bulldogs have been battered and bruised to say the least at that position.
The depth at running back seemed to get thinner momentarily as true freshman Saevion Johnson stayed on the ground after being tackled on a short run.
Johnson would stay down for a minute as trainers worked on him before getting up and walking off the field with assistance from the trainers.
DeRuyter said Johnson’s injury didn’t appear to be anything serious.
“I think he got a knee on the side of his leg, got a little scared,” DeRuyter said. “(Team) doctors think everything’s stable. He should be fine.”
The injury scare from Johnson had DeRuyter joking about the Bulldogs’ luck with injuries at the running back position recently.
“I thought somehow we got a curse here on running backs,” DeRuyter said to lighten the moment. “(Johnson) is going to be fine and Dontel (James) had successful surgery yesterday and hopefully we’ll get him back in a couple of weeks.”
That’s good news for a group that will likely see Justin Rice take a redshirt after surgery to repair a fractured bone in his foot.
The Bulldogs also received MRI results from injured freshman running back Deonte Perry and expect him to be out for the season as surgery is scheduled for next week.
Turning back to the competition at quarterback, DeRuyter said he would have to view the game film to get a full assessment, but liked what he saw overall from Virgil and Kline.
“I thought Chason responded well,” DeRuyter said after Virgil’s early struggles. “There was some adversity early. Protections weren’t great for him, but he was making some plays. I thought Zach threw the ball well today and had a pretty good command of the offense as well.”
DeRuyter said the performances in the first scrimmage were exactly what he expected and now it’s time to spend the next three weeks zeroing in on becoming as effective as possible on offense.
“We’ve got 90 percent, 95 percent of our install done and now it’s about refining it,” DeRuyter said. “Our coaches were saying, ‘Thank God we’re not playing Nebraska today.’ We’ve got three weeks to go. We’ve given our guys the entire playbook, but you go into a game with a fraction of it.
“Now it’s really about polishing what we can do and find out the playmakers and how we get the balls to those playmakers.”
For the defense, coach Ward liked what he saw from his unit in the scrimmage.
“I think the young men understand we’re going to be an attacking defense and we’re going to try and create havoc for the offense and get them in long-yard situations and I think we did that today,” Ward said.
Ward’s defense has the potential of true freshmen seeing a good amount of playing time this season from the defensive line to the secondary.
“I think we got a really good group of freshmen that we signed and that’s shown they can help us with depth on defense,” Ward said. “We got three D-linemen that didn’t play a snap in the spring that are going to factor in with Austin Vamili (junior), Kevin Atkins (freshman) and Elijah Piper (freshman).
“Those three guys are athletic and they’re probably the most three athletic guys we’ve got up front. They’re still a ways away (from where we’d like them to be), but they’ve show us they can play.”
Ward also said linebacker Jeffrey Allison has done a great job coming in and making plays and continued the praise on Hanford product Juju Hughes.
“Juju went I think five-straight days with an interception (in camp) and created a fumble today,” Ward said. “We’re glad that those young men were like we thought they were going to be when we recruited them.”
With the number of true freshmen competing for a starting spot on the defense, Ward said at the end of the day it comes down to who produces the most.
“Best man will play,” Ward said. “I don’t care if he’s a freshman or if he’s a senior. If he’s the guy that’s been most productive, he’ll play.”
One of the guys who’s routinely caught the attention of Ward by his playing is sophomore outside linebacker James Bailey.
Ward said Bailey has all of the potential to become a special player in this defensive system with the Bulldogs.
“You can blitz him, he’s athletic, he can cover in space,” Ward said. “He allows us to do some things that they weren’t able to do in the past year.
“James, he’s in the position that we think is very, very, crucial to this system at the ‘Sam’ (outside linebacker) because again, we ask him to do a lot of things and here right now he’s doing them.”