Thoughts from the Spring Game

• Fantastic crowd. According to www.gopack.com, 15,273(or so) loyal Pack fans crammed into the western seats of Carter Finley to watch Saturday's scrimmage. I'm always proud of the fact that no other school in North Carolina gets behind football in the kind of numbers like we do.
  
  
• Quarterbacks: Burke's stock rose, Wilson's fell and Beck's stayed about where it was, which is to say I've never felt that high on him to begin with. Beck continually stared down his receiver on nearly every snap and rarely went through any progressions. Burke, on the other hand, looked much more poised in the pocket and did a much better job going through his reads. Wilson showed the nervousness of someone who'd never taken snaps in front of a large audience. He missed a few open receivers and looked shaky in the pocket. It's worth noting that he's splitting time with the baseball team, as well, so when he can focus 100% on football he may improve. He did show an element of escapability that none of our other quarterbacks posses. That may help him when fall practice starts and TOB faces the tough test of deciding on the QB among the five choices (Beck, Burke, Evans, Glennon, Wilson) in front of him.
  
  
• Running backs: It's tough to say; with Baker and Brown both out with injuries, Jamelle Eugene was the only scholarship RB available for much action. He did look solid carrying the ball, outrunning defenders on the edges to turn would-be losses into 5-7 yard gains.
  
  
• Wide Receivers: Donald Bowens. Donald Bowens, Donald Bowens, Donald Bowens. This junior has the opportunity to really blossom into one of the great Pack WRs in the vein of Torry Holt, Jerricho Cotchery, etc. He's got the size and speed to catch just about every pass, and on Saturday he bailed out his QB on more than one occasion. If our QB settles into a comfortable, solid status then I think Bowens could have a huge year. The question is who will step up to fill the role of the #2 receiver to take the pressure off him. That will likely be settled in the fall.
  
  
• Line play: Eh. Tough to say. I can't say one unit looked better than the other. The defensive line didn't dominate our offensive line or get much pressure on the QBs--it's a glass half-empty/half-full scenario depending on your perspective. If I had to give the edge to one group it probably would be to the offensive line, given that typically your defense is ahead of your offense this time of year. That they fought to a scratch means the offensive line overcame that minor edge the defense supposedly possesses. But splitting hairs that thin is really, really trying to find something.
  
  
• Funnel Cakes: Smell great cooking.
  
  
• Posters/rosters: FINALLY, someone in charge got the right idea to put someone in charge of distribution to limit two posters per person. Why it took this long to get that done, I'll never know, but kudos to whoever made that call. So many more folks got posters this year (read: me) than have in the past because of it.

Now football goes into hibernation for the longest four months of the year. Yuck.