{"id":22933,"date":"2012-03-13T17:41:16","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T00:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=22933"},"modified":"2012-03-14T00:28:46","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T07:28:46","slug":"cougars-take-spring-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=22933","title":{"rendered":"Cougars Take Spring Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Ronald Douglas (#12) picked up his game this spring.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Joe Torosian<\/p>\n

(Azusa)— After three weeks of building sweat, brushing the rust, oiling the joints, and getting a feel for the upcoming 2012 season the Azusa Pacific Cougars football team took it\u2019s first Division II exam with a scrimmage on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great laboratory today,\u201d said APU HC Victor Santa Cruz. \u201cThis is going to be a great film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

APU "Bad Dudes" Eric Meniefield (#83) & Robby Palacios (#75)<\/p><\/div>\n

The full scrimmage between offense and defense was broken up by several individual sessions for the selected positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen every practice this spring,\u201d said Santa Cruz. \u201cWhat stands out is the progression of the team moving forward. At this time in spring ball (three weeks) any coach is trying to fight the doldrums and figure a way to keep it fresh and keep growth happening. To come out today and see everyone continue to compete at the level they did, to keep the whole thing going forward, it\u2019s great to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Santa Cruz saw the positive in the macro, offensive coordinator Rudy Carlton saw it a little different in the micro.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like we made a lot of progress, especially in the first two weeks of spring ball,\u201d said Carlton. \u201cAnd then this week I feel like we kind of tailed off as an offense. We are really thin up front, really thin at running back and I think that contributed to it but I\u2019m really disappointed with some of the guys that didn\u2019t step up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Driving Carlton beyond the expected desire to see his players and offense improve is the knowledge that he is replacing nearly all of his skill players in the same year the Cougars are stepping into D-2.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of holes to fill, graduated a lot of players; our quarterback, two top receivers, tight end and our H-back. All very good football players that are now gone, so I was kind of displeased.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Moorpark College transfer Nick Owens and Charter Oak\u2019s Travis Santiago coming aboard later in the year the past few weeks were an opportunity for roster returners at quarterback to show what they could do.<\/p>\n

Carlton praised the growth of Justin McPherson and Tyler Tuiasosopo as well as redshirt freshman quarterback Erin Barber.<\/p>\n

\u201cErin probably made some of the biggest bounds and growth out of the whole offense and by the way he has developed in the weight room,\u201d said Carlton.<\/p>\n

With five quarterbacks in the mix heading towards September and only seven passes thrown (all by McPherson) returning to the APU roster the scrimmage was critical all the way around.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal during spring ball is to create that violent physical between the whistles attitude,\u201d said Santa Cruz. “To clean up vital techniques that go with our system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to simulate,\u201d said Carlton. \u201cWe do a great job here and Coach Santa Cruz does a great job creating the good on good match ups. We do a lot to get the closest look so it\u2019s not a surprising speed at game time, especially for a quarterback. To see a defense moving full speed, to see a defensive line and a pass rush it is still really difficult to simulate a game rep.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are always trying to find out new ways to see where we are at,\u201d said Santa Cruz. \u201cWe\u2019re developing a good foundation of mental toughness. They\u2019re beginning to pick up the schemes and the fundamentals that go with it so they can begin to move as a real cohesive group…I\u2019m really excited about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Cougar Notes:<\/strong> Former San Dimas wide receiver Kevin Kolbeck<\/strong> who most thought was finished playing football after the 2010 prep season had his fire for football rekindle, thanks in large part to SD assistant Dane Johnson<\/strong>, is battling for a roster spot…Johnson serves as APU’s part-time “Get Back Coach”…While in search of a running back Carlton was pleased with play of freshman Ronald Douglas<\/strong>, out of Sylmar, this spring. \u201cHe can flat out run,\u201d says Carlton. \u201cHe\u2019s got a gear, a top end, we don\u2019t have anywhere else. In terms of being an all facet running back he needed to grow a lot. I felt like he did that in understanding what we need out of a running back and being more of a complete back. He did that this spring.\u201d …Carlton also loves the speed and ability of freshman wide out Bryan Keller<\/strong>…Keep an eye on tight end Eric Meniefield<\/strong> (6-3, 245)…For those wondering how a D-2 team travels, know that the trips to UC Davis, outside of Sacramento (six hours) and Humboldt State (12 hours) will be by bus.<\/p>\n

Contact Joe at joe@midvalleysports.com<\/p>\n

Follow him on Twitter at @joet13b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Joe Torosian (Azusa)— After three weeks of building sweat, brushing the rust, oiling the joints, and getting a feel for the upcoming 2012 season the Azusa Pacific Cougars football team took it\u2019s first Division II exam with a scrimmage on Saturday. \u201cIt was a great laboratory today,\u201d said APU HC Victor Santa Cruz. \u201cThis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[871],"tags":[6841,7116,7114,7115,7041,7042,1483,6832,7044,7117,6827,730,7043,7040],"class_list":["post-22933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college","tag-apu-cougars-football","tag-bryan-keller","tag-dane-johnson","tag-eric-meniefield","tag-erin-barber","tag-justin-mcpherson","tag-kevin-kolbeck","tag-nick-owens","tag-robby-palacios","tag-ronald-douglas","tag-rudy-carlton","tag-travis-santiago","tag-tyler-tuiasosopo","tag-victor-santa-cruz"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22933"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22942,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22933\/revisions\/22942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}