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Saturday, April 15, 2000
Defense shines
in Rainbows’ last
spring practice
Jones will use footage of
By Paul Arnett
the scrimmage to decide
who is invited to fall camp
Star-BulletinPerhaps it was a good move by University of Hawaii head coach June Jones to sit the top defensive unit for most of today's controlled scrimmage at Cooke Field.
Rotating five quarterbacks and a variety of receivers and linemen kept the offense from having the kind of consistency Jones will need from the Rainbows in the fall.
A crowd of about 1,500 attended the final practice of the spring. It was not a spring game as such because there were no kickoffs, punts and every one of the 60 plays began at the 35-yard line."But it was what we needed to do to get everybody on film and to evaluate what we have," Jones said. "We're going to look at the film and meet with the players over the next two weeks to let them know who will be invited to fall camp in August.
"It was kind of rough out there today, but I thought the first units on both sides did some good things. We got the opportunity to look at a lot of players, which we did. We were concerned about injuries, so we kept some of our starters on defense out of there just to make sure."
As it turned out, the different defensive units on the field forced three interceptions and three fumbles. The offense failed to score a touchdown as fans began to file out of the stadium before the scrimmage was done.
Jones began the scrimmage by having each of three quarterbacks run a series of six plays. Sophomore Mike Harrison was the first quarterback under center. Junior college transfers Jared Flint and Nick Rolovich followed in this sequence that allowed all three quarterbacks a total of 12 plays.
Flint had the best numbers of the three, completing 6 of 9 passes for 51 yards. Harrison hit 3 of 9 for 58 yards, including a 31-yarder to Clifton Herbert. Rolovich, who was the third quarterback in this sequence, hit 5 of 11 passes for 43 yards.
Once Jones completed this 36-play sequence, sophomore quarterbacks Kevin Gilbride and Shawn Withy-Allen ran a dozen plays each. Gilbride completed 3 of 5 for 27 yards. Withy-Allen hit 1 of 6 for 12 yards.
"I thought our quarterbacks did a pretty good job, considering the circumstances," Jones said. "I thought (wide receiver) Clifton Herbert did some good things after he caught the ball.
"What we need to work on most is our execution on offense. In defense of our quarterbacks, we dropped a lot of footballs out there that we need to catch during the games.
"As you could see, I think we're going to be very good on defense. We've got some guys who ran around and made some plays out there. Once we get them together in the fall, we're going to work more with the top two units."
Safety Jacob Espiau had a nifty interception and return on the first throw by Harrison. It was tipped over the middle and landed in the hands of Espiau, who returned it 30 yards.
Herbert caught a pair of passes for 38 yards. Fellow wideout Jamal Garland pulled down three for 34 yards. Scott Sims caught two passes for 29 yards and Justin Colbert caught one pass for 14 yards.
"All in all, I thought we had a good spring," Jones said. "We made a lot of progress on offense, which was tough to do with new quarterbacks and a new offensive line. Hopefully, we'll continue to get better in the fall."
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
