Tigers Have Final Scrimmage of Camp

Aug 27, 2009 | Football

Aug. 27, 2009

MEMPHIS, TENN. - The Tigers made the short drive to the Liberty Bowl for the final scrimmage of fall camp Thursday afternoon. The temperatures hovered in the 90s and the sun was blazing down on the turf, much like it could be for the home opener against Ole Miss on Sunday, Sept. 6, at 2:30 p.m.

Arkelon Hall opened the scrimmage with a seven-yard pass to Carlos Singleton and then hit Singleton with the long ball for a 56-yard completion. He then had consecutive strikes to Marcus Rucker (11 yds) and Steven Joachim (12 yards). The drive ended with a seven-yard pass to Duke Calhoun.

Hall completed 16 of 26 passes and tossed three touchdowns in the 81-play scrimmage. He logged 191 yards and tossed one interception, which was picked off by Deante' Lamar. His touchdown passes were to Marcus Rucker (13 yds), Curtis Johnson (15 yds) and Carlos Singleton (21 yds). A redshirt freshman, Johnson led the way in receptions with five for 38 yards. Singleton led the way in yardage, totaling 110 yards on four catches. Deven Onarheim, Rucker and Jermaine McKenzie all had multiple receptions today.

"I think Arkelon has played well in this camp," said head coach Tommy West. "I think he has played well enough to be our guy. Again, I'll go back and look, but right now in my mind, I am looking for someone to back him up."

"We didn't make the progress at backup quarterback through the camp that I wanted to make," added West. "I don't think anybody jumped out and really said `Hey, I'm going to take this job away.' I was trying to create competition to make everybody better and if somebody did jump up and take it away, then we are better than we thought we'd be. I don't think anybody did that, so I am a little disappointed there."

Lance Smith had the only rushing touchdown of the day on a one-yard run on 2nd-and-goal when West set up for redzone situations. The offense scored three times when set up in the redzone, with the Smith run, the 13-yard touchdown from Hall to Rucker, and a 14-yard touchdown pass from Will Hudgens to Onarheim. Hudgens completed five passes for 73 yards. He had long completions to McKenzie (25 yds) and Singleton (26 yds). Brett Toney saw limited action, completing 2 of 4 passes and tossing an interception that was picked off and returned for a touchdown by Bryan Wright. Tyler Bass did not participate after having to have fluid drained from his knee.

Additional defensive highlights included pass breakups by Dontari Poe, D.A. Griffin and Lamar. Several defenders logged sacks including Jada Brown, Clay Lee, Tim McGee, Steven Turner and Griffin , while Charlie Bryant, Terrence Thomas and Justin Thompson were credited with TFLs.

"It's tough to grade the defense when you are not tackling," said West. "I put the defense at a disadvantage and obviously I did it for a reason. We're too close to the game. You don't have enough guys now to bang them all the time. I wasn't going to come out here today and hand the ball off to Curtis Steele and to T.J. Pitts and lose somebody. We don't need to do that. We are fine physically. Mentally I am disappointed in some dumb plays."

"We still have too much jumping offsides, throwing a pick coming out," added West. "We worked hard this week at cleaning up the mistakes, and we made enough today to lose. We have a slogan that is `I'm in', and if I'm in, then I am not going to be that guy who makes that mistake that lets a team that is not as good as you win. We are going to have to go back and be more responsible as individuals. They are lucky because we have time to get it corrected. It's not as bad as last Thursday, but still too many errors."

The Tigers will practice in the afternoon on Friday and will end camp with the morning practice on Saturday. The team will meet its fans Saturday afternoon at FanFest from 3-5 p.m. at Echles Field. Players and coaches will be signing autographs and there will be games and festivities for the children. In addition, FanFest will serve as the official first birthday party for TOM III, the university's Bengal tiger mascot.