News Story - Idaho State Journal

tflagstad@journalnet.com

POCATELLO -- During each Idaho State football practice, linebacker Brad Rife and his defensive teammates have a goal of forcing four turnovers.

If they don't hit the mark, they run.

During the Bengals' second scrimmage of fall camp Saturday inside Holt Arena, Rife and company didn't have to worry about any extra conditioning work.

The defense controlled the action just as it did six days earlier during the team's first scrimmage, and most importantly, it forced four turnovers.

"That's huge right there. We stress that every day in practice," said Rife, a senior middle linebacker. "If we can get four a game, that helps us out a ton."

Overall, the defense didn't allow any big plays while limiting the offense to two touchdowns on possessions that started outside the red zone. The "D" also scored a touchdown of its own.

In red zone work, freshman running back Ben Laporta caught a pass from redshirt freshman Evan Mozzochi and took it down to the two-yard line before redshirt freshman linebacker J.T. Albers knocked the ball loose.

Cornerback George Ortiz, a junior college transfer, scooped the ball up and ran it back 98-yards for a score.

The offense's two touchdowns while using a long field came after pass interference penalties handed first downs to the offense on third-and-long situations.

"We've just been working together real well," said senior cornerback D.J. Clark. "Everyone's getting in their playbooks and knows exactly what they have to do. We're all working together, and we've got good chemistry."

Senior quarterback Kyle Blum led the first scoring drive, connecting with senior running back Jayson Bird on a four-yard touchdown pass after an earlier pass interference call kept the drive, which started on the offense's 35-yard line, alive.

The second score came when Mozzochi hit redshirt freshman Angelo Magee -- who caught four passes for a scrimmage-high 42 yards -- in the back of the end zone for a 10-yard score.

That touchdown came only after freshman safety A.J. Storms intercepted a Mozzachi pass a few plays earlier.

As for the penalties in the secondary, the Bengals weren't too concerned with them because it was their first time playing with officials this fall.

"It was a little different because in practice we're able to get away with a little tug here and there," Clark said. "It's preparing us for the games and for the real calls that are coming."

For the second straight scrimmage, the first-team offense failed to cap an extended drive with a touchdown.

The unit did show the ability to run the ball effectively, but Russel Hill was 4-of-8 passing for 20 yards, including an interception to Rife during red zone work. Hill also lost a fumble while facing pressure from senior defensive lineman Josh Crittenden.

"We got the running game established, and the passing game was good today," said senior wideout Eddie Thompson. "Everything was looking real good for us. We made a few mistakes here and there, but we're just slowly progressing toward August 30. That's the goal. We don't want to peak now."

Coach John Zamberlin said the lack of points by the starting offense is no reason to worry because Idaho State hasn't shown much of its offense during the public exhibitions.

"We're staying vanilla in our scrimmages here," he said. "We're not putting a lot of pressure on our defense, but we're not showing a lot of our hand, either."

During work in the red zone, the offense scored touchdowns on four out of eight possessions.

Hill led two of those scoring drives, the first coming on a one-yard touchdown by junior running back Clint Knickrehm. The other was a result of a two-yard scoring run by senior back Ken Cornist, who set it up with an 18-yard carry around the left side the play before.

"Defensively, you want to give up as little as possible," Rife said, "but when it's our offense out there, it's kind of a good thing when they can be scoring in the red zone.

"If anyone's going to be scoring on us down there, I want it to be our offense."

The other scores came on a three-yard run by senior Kenyon Blue with Blum running the offense and a 20-yard score by Bird while Mozzochi was under center.

Blum finished the day 7-of-13 for 56 yards and a touchdown, while Mozzochi was 6-of-12 for 67 yards, a touchdown and an interception.

On the day, Cornist led the way on the ground by picking up 54 yards on eight carries, while Bird ran for 36 yards on nine carries and Knickrehm piled up 30 yards on eight carries.

Idaho State will hold a final scrimmage Thursday before opening regular season play Aug. 30 at Boise State.

"In a week and a half, we've come a long way as a team," Zamberlin said. "We've got two weeks to go, so each day the sense of urgency builds a little bit."

By Tim Flagstad

This document was originally published online on Sunday, August 17, 2008

Article Rating

Reader Comments

The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of our paper.

Submit a Comment

Commenting Rules

We encourage your feedback and dialog. All comments are subject to deletion by our Web staff.

Report a Comment

Report a comment for review to the ISJ web staff.