Football Concludes Third Week Of Spring Practice
4/16/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 16, 2005
The Baylor football team concluded its third week of spring practice with a 2-hour, 30-minute scrimmage Saturday morning on the Floyd Casey Stadium turf.
"There was some good work on both sides of the ball today," said Bears' third-year coach Guy Morriss. "The defense put nine points on the board which was good to see. Ever since Thursday, they've kind of gotten the better of us. They played with a lot more energy and enthusiasm today."
The Baylor defense scored the first points of the game when junior defensive end Julian Hill forced a safety. Senior outside safety Willie Andrews then recovered a fumble in the end zone for the scrimmage's first touchdown.
The Bears' offense produced two scores, as No. 3 quarterback Mark Murphy tossed a 40-yard touchdown pass to redshirt freshman receiver Nate Cook. BU's top signal caller, junior Shawn Bell, then threw a 9-yard scoring pass to sophomore tight end Jordan Adams.
In situational work in the red zone, the Baylor offense produced four touchdowns. Junior running back Paul Mosley scored on runs of 20 and 3 yards, while junior wide receiver Dominique Zeigler caught a 20-yard scoring pass from Bell and sophomore running back Rob Culberson scored on a 5-yard run.
Culberson carried 11 times for a scrimmage-high 121 yards and one touchdown, while Mosley rushed 17 times for 70 yards and two scores. Sophomore Brandon Whitaker had eight carries for 35 yards and redshirt freshman Jacoby Jones had eight totes for 24 yards.
Bell had another good day throwing the ball, as he completed 17 of 25 passes for 168 yards and two touchdowns. All-told, Baylor signal callers were 28 of 54 for 285 yards and three scores with no interceptions. Sixteen different Bears caught passes in the game, led by Zeigler's four grabs for 42 yards and senior Shaun Rochon's four catches for 29 yards and Cook's one snag for 40 yards.
The injury-bug struck early in the scrimmage as sophomore quarterback Terrance Parks cut the index finger on his throwing hand. He will likely miss the remainder of spring practice and may need surgery on the finger. Parks was battling Bell for the top spot on the Bears' depth chart at quarterback after starting last year's season-finale against No. 2 Oklahoma.
"I think Terrance cut the ligament in his index finger, and if that's the case, they'll have to go in there and surgically repair it," Morriss said. "He won't be throwing anymore this spring."
Baylor, which concludes spring practice with the April 23rd Green-Gold game, will practice next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday leading up to the spring game.
"I think we need to stay with the MO that we went into the spring with," Morriss said. "We've got two padded practices left to get after it and keep competing. We don't need to add much at this point. We've got to work out some kinks and bugs in what we have in now and keep competing. I want to see good tempo and enthusiasm. I thought that was good today, seeing as we've had three pretty hard days in a row. It used to be we couldn't get through one day before we'd fall off the planet."
