W2WF: Scrimmage No. 2

Football's preseason becomes incredibly mundane by the time the second scrimmage kicks off. The excitement of the first week is all but gone, replaced by the repetitive tasks and drills of practice and film sessions. Bad habits are fixed, but new bad habits can emerge. Those are then fixed, and other habits rear their unsightly heads. However, the repetitiveness and fatigue are each a necessary evil.

The preseason is often filled with questions and hypothetical answers. The unknown, blank slate of the upcoming year ferries hopes and dreams across everyone's mind, especially for a program that scratched the tip of its iceberg last season. But at some point, everyone just gets tired of answering the same question and just starts looking forward to that first game.

Saturday's second preseason scrimmage will start providing that link. It's the final competitive session that media members can watch, which means the next, "public unveiling" is the first game. The players will finally transition out of conditioning and drills into preparation for their first game of the season, and the excitement will inject itself anew.

It's the first push of the final push to the first week of the season. Steve Addazio stood at the podium on media day and shrugged off any discussion of wins and losses. It's something he's done annually because he prefers to focus on the season as a series of "one-game seasons." The team can't move forward to Kansas, Rutgers, Clemson or Notre Dame without passing through the Virginia Tech game first.

The team had to go through its entire preseason protocol, for better and for worse, before it could ever dream of Virginia Tech. It had to transform into "game shape." It received a reality check in the first scrimmage. It hit the dog days. Now it needs to push through the second scrimmage, fully applying all learned lessons. Starting next week, it can finish transforming into a football-ready unit, now ready to start moving faster and faster to the Hokies.

That gives Saturday an air of urgency. It's an important benchmark, one that ultimately is required in order to take the next step, continuing that march to Virginia Tech - and beyond.

Here's what to watch for when the Eagles take the field this weekend:

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Scrimmage Storylines

Take the 8:15 into the city.

The second scrimmage usually draws more focus to the first team offense because of the sheer number of plays it will run. The unit ran approximately 70 plays in the first scrimmage and produced solid notes and plays, but a lack of discipline yielded untimely, drive-killing penalties. Cleaning up those penalties should prevent stalling drives, which will ultimately enable longer, more sustained plays. Simply put, the first team offense will stay on the field as long as it takes care of business.

The unit itself will also need to work at a faster pace and create the flow. Anthony Brown is at the center of that, but formation substitutions on the fly are equally critical. David Bailey and Ben Glines proved a bit of that last week, subbing in and out during a drive that ended in an offensive score. There is equal importance on setting linemen and substituting in tight ends or receivers without covering up the wrong player or committing an illegal procedure infraction.

Opportunity is A-Knockin'

When a football team starts pivoting into its regular season, players who saw extended time during the preseason begin shuffling back to the bench. Saturday represents one of the last opportunities for second and third unit players to potentially earn backup slots on depth charts or snaps at various points during the season. There will still be opportunity, but it's nothing like the first couple of weeks when teams are working against one another.

The backup quarterback's role unexpectedly became a pleasant surprise at last week's scrimmage. Anthony Brown is entrenched as the first team starter, so the race for his backup slot felt like a secondary storyline compared to other, more wide-open positions. That was before Dennis Grosel and Matt Valecce turned heads with their play in second team drives and drills.

Then the third team role got into things when Daelen Menard came out of nowhere. Menard engineered a drive in full contact and connected with a couple of passes that showed poise in the pocket. His work against Sam Johnson III made for a nice side battle between two freshmen who could be future works-in-progress for the Eagles. It also gave the highly-touted Johnson a good push to work on his decision making and accuracy.

A good position battle always enhances competition, which in turn forces everyone to play a little bit better. Brown is the starter, but it's still nice to see young players grab the proverbial brass ring when time's allotted.

Cover Bands

Special teams is a huge component in the Boston College gameplan, but it's especially important against a team like Virginia Tech. The Hokies built success with the legacy of "Beamerball," and tilting field position with kickoff and punt coverage is an underrated component of the time of possession battle.

Punt coverage has its own language because it's more than gunners sprinting down the field. Punters like Grant Carlson need to angle kicks based on hang time and sideline location in order to maximize coverage and minimize returnability. The return unit, however, needs to compensate for it with blocking schemes built by its own speedy defenders. It's a chess match that goes unnoticed, but it will almost assuredly play a role in the game against the Hokies.

The kickers, meanwhile, endured 25-second, frenetic drills during the first scrimmage. This will be the second extended look at Aaron Boumerhi and how he can handle kicks from varying locations and directions.

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They Said It

"Tempo - we're moving right now. We're having a lot of fun and everyone's executing right now. Everyone's moving sideline-to-sideline, and it's a lot of effort all around the field." -Anthony Brown, in this week's QB Focus feature.

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Meteorology 101

Last week had reasonably easy temperatures with no humidity and a complete sunshine splash. Well, two-out-of-three isn't bad for this week.

Saturday is still going to be nice. Temperatures aren't going to hit 80 degrees, and the morning will feature some overcast skies. The humidity, though, won't cooperate this week. It's supposed to be sticky humid with rain coming on Sunday.

I could go on about how the weather is good for training, and it's good to simulate playing conditions that aren't always beautiful and dry. I'd rather make a personal complaint, though, because I'm a notorious "cold weather" person.

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Pregame Quote & Prediction

You can't dream up confidence. Confidence is born of demonstrated ability. -Bill Parcells

The first scrimmage is designed to create barriers and speed bumps for a football team. It's designed to create mistakes and introduce scenarios that become a series of checks and balances. Every year, it produces the same levels of mistakes because it's part of a learning process.

The second scrimmage, though, is designed to rebuild the confidence by cleaning up the mistakes introduced by last week. It's meant to reinforce the positive by stamping out the negatives. It doesn't coddle players, but the database is built in such a way that they perform at a higher level.

It's as simple as that. The goal is to continue building for the first game. This is another benchmark, one that will ultimately help lead the team into preparation for that first game against Virginia Tech.

Players Mentioned

David Bailey

Aaron Boumerhi

Anthony Brown

Grant Carlson

Ben Glines

Dennis Grosel

Sam Johnson III

Daelen Menard

Matt Valecce

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