WSU practice notes: Thursday Night Football
Deion Singleton, James Williams and Nnamdi Oguayo stood out during Washington State's weekly underclassmen scrimmage.
Here's how it all went down.
-- Peyton Bender took the first series and could not lead a scoring drive. The series began poorly with Bender throwing an incomplete pass, rushing for two yards and then fumbling an exchange with running back James Williams on third down.
On fourth down, however, Bender found Kainoa Wilson for 16 yards to keep the offense moving. Later in the drill, Mike Leach took exception to how slowly the offense was getting set up and stopped the scrimmage for some up-downs.
Bender completed his next six passes after the up-downs, gaining 45 yards and getting to the red zone's doorstep. The drive included a 10-yard pass to James Williams, who broke three tackles after making the reception.
But cornerback Deion Singleton intercepted a Bender pass just when the offense looked poised to score, fumbling the ball during his return and diving on it to secure possession for the defense.
-- The defense got after Tyler Hilinski early on his drive, blitzing Colton Teglovic, who pressured the quarterback into an incomplete pass. Williams would have moved the chains with a run for 10 or so yards, but Oguayo punched the ball out and Ngalu Tapa recovered it. The drive continued and Hilinski moved the offense by peppering passes to receivers like Kaleb Fossum, D.J. Thompson and Kyle Sweet.
An offensive lineman, who was pushed back into the quarterback by Tapa, sacked Hilinski for six yards. But on 4th-and-11, Hilinksi threw an 11-yard pass to Sweet, who shook free of Calvin Green in the end zone.
-- The day's best drive belonged to walk-on freshman Christian Jorgensen. The Bellingham product completed his first five passes, each of which went for at least six yards. Singleton then broke up consecutive passes on third and fourth down to put the offense in a tough spot, but Williams picked up six yards on fifth down (I know) to keep the drive alive (sort of). Jorgensen then found tight end Nick Begg behind the defense on a 28-yard touchdown pass.
