Impressive performances on both sides of the ball during SIU’s first live scrimmage
- Tom Weber
- 27 minutes ago
- 5 min read
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Saluki Football held its first scrimmage of training camp on Tuesday, and head coach Nick Hill was eager to dig deeper into the 75 live plays the team put down on film.
“When you evaluate the tape, you find guys who continue to be consistent and trustworthy, and sometimes in these opportunities, you find guys that make plays on and off-the-script in live situations,” he said.
Quarterback DJ Williams has been impressive throughout the seven practices of training camp, and today he completed 6-of-9 passes for 119 yards, including a couple of long-gainers of 42 and 39 yards to wide receiver Kyle Thomas.
“We know what we have in DJ,” Hill said. “He’s always going to be one of the most athletic, if not the most athletic guy on the field. He continues to dial-in on the small things.”
Coming off a knee injury that limited his mobility last season, Williams said his “body’s feeling great.”
“I feel amazing,” Williams said. “Running the fastest I've ever ran. Lifting the most I’ve ever lifted. Shout-out to (strength coach) Meade (Smith) and (trainer) Mike (Lyznicki). It's just time to get out there and show it.”
Hill hopes to supplement Williams’ talent with a powerful running game, and there were glimpses of that potential. Running back Chandler Chapman took just three carries, but one of them went for a 49-yard touchdown.
“The offense is only going to be explosive if you can run the football,” Hill said. “That’s non-negotiable. If you're not running the football well, then the play-action is thrown out, and you become one-dimensional. So it starts with the run game.”
Running back might be the deepest position on the team, and all eight of the team’s backs had carries during the scrimmage.
“Not too many people are going to be able to stop the group of running backs we have,” Williams predicted.
Other than Chapman’s long touchdown run, Southern’s defense did a solid job against the run, however. The only other double-digit carry was an 18-yard burst up the middle by freshman Dayne Schmidt, toward the end of the scrimmage.
“I feel like we've shown a lot of physicality and violence,” said SIU linebacker Andrew Behm. “We’ve made a lot of progress coming together as a team, being able to trust each other to do their job, so you can play faster.”
Behm said it’s a built-in advantage for the defense to face a high-powered attack every day in practice.
“Iron sharpens iron,” he said. “You want an offense that's able to push you and give you different looks. They test our defense, and hopefully, we're testing them too.”
Scrimmage Notebook
Today’s scrimmage was exactly the kind of give-and-take you hope to see between the offense and defense. You don’t want either side to dominate the action, and neither did. There were a handful of explosive plays by the offense, and lots of solid work against the run by the defense.