Orange Defeats White 7-0 in Spring Game
April 7, 2007
Miami – The Orange team beat the White team 7-0 in the annual spring game at the Orange Bowl on Saturday morning in front of about 7,000 fans.
Kyle Wright threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Sam Shields just before halftime for the only score of the game.
“The most impressive thing was the competition today, with teams competing, as well as the two-minute drill that the offense scored on,” said head coach Randy Shannon. “And in the other two-minute drill (just before the end of the game), the other team had an opportunity to score in the two-minute drill and it would have been a chance for us to take it into overtime or go for two (points).
“You always want to do more, but you can’t show a lot when you open it up to the public because you never who’s in the stands or who’s filming (for an future opponent),” Shannon added. “It was a pretty clean scrimmage.”
Shannon split his team into two evenly matched squads and said he was not surprised about the low score. “When you split teams up like that, you’re going to have only about one or two touchdowns because guys have to jell because they have never worked together before.”
With two quarterbacks competing for the starting job, “Shannon said, “They did OK. They didn’t do great. There was not a 300-, 400-yard passing game. But if we get a quarterback who’ll win games, we’ll be OK, and that’s what we’re going to develop.” Kyle Wright completed 7 of 14 passes for 60 yards and one touchdown, and Kirby Freeman was 8 of 19 for 117 yards and one interception.
“People have to realize we have three offensive linemen out, two receivers out, two running backs out, so that’s a lot of power out on offense that was not in the game,” Shannon said. “When the fall comes around, we’ll have everybody healthy.”
“The defense is always at an advantage because the offense runs a basic package, so the defense almost always wins the spring game,” said defensive end Calais Campbell, who made three sacks and led the game with four tackles. “I’m not worried about the offense because I know they can do it. They’ll score a lot of points this year. Our defense is one of the best in the country, if not the best.”
Of his touchdown, Shields said, “It was a go-up ball in the two-minute drill, a fight and I had to go up, concentrate and catch the ball.”
Safety Kenny Phillips was on the field for the play and said, “It was covered pretty well (by Randy Phillips), but Sam Shields is a great athlete and he made the play. You can’t take anything away from that.”
Running back Javarris James suffered a sprained injury and carried only five times. The leading rusher was Charlie Jones, who gained 39 yards on 11 rushes.
Offensive coordinator Patrick Nix called the plays for both teams and commented, “That wasn’t our offense today. Our offense had a good spring, a great spring. You don’t get a whole lot out of a spring game. You get some individual work (from) guys who don’t normally play get to play in the Orange Bowl on TV. That’s what today was all about. We had 13 other practices. We were a lot more concerned with yesterday’s practice. Today was a day to reward some players who don’t normally get to play. Next fall we will scheme teams and get into our offense and have some fun with it. Today was not about that.”
