By Rick Peterson
TopSports.news
With Washburn University's football team graduating 21 seniors from last year's 7-4 team, including All-Americans JJ Letcher and Grant Bruner, there's going to be plenty of opportunities for many of the Ichabods' younger players to step into major roles this fall.
Washburn football coach Craig Schurig talks to his Ichabods after Saturday's Spring Game at Yager Stadium. [Photo by Rick Peterson/TSN]
And veteran WU coach Craig Schurig felt that like spring practice, which concluded with Saturday's Spring Game at Yager Stadium, showed that a lot of those young players are ready for that.
"I really felt good about the work our young guys got in,'' Schurig said. "We had a lot of guys over the last two years, because of the extra senior class that you had, that haven't really been able to play and we got them involved in what we call our 1s-2s scrimmages and they stepped up.
"So I like our depth, I like the way those guys performed. They've been patient and it seems like it's going to pay off for them. I really liked the way some of the young guys really showed out and the older guys were good leaders and they got the reps they needed.''
After the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19, the NCAA granted players an extra year of eligibility, which helped programs from an experience standpoint but meant that underclassmen had to wait their turn even more than normal.
"You look at the last two years with those guys with six years, there's a number of guys that were good enough to have played but they didn't play much,'' Schurig said. "They played maybe special teams or maybe not at all and now it's their turn. Those guys are ready to play.
"They've made themselves really strong in the weight room and conditioning-wise and this is really the first spring where they got real quality reps the whole time. And we still have some six-year guys back that will be great leaders for us.''
Schurig feels like several position groups stood out this spring.
"We have six returning offensive linemen so we knew that would be pretty stable but the young guys did a great job so we feel like we've got 10 guys, 11 guys that can play so that's nice,'' Schurig said. "And the secondary was really a question mark coming because guys hadn't played much and they really stepped up and I think as the spring went on they started playing with more and more confidence and I think they did a nice job.
"The other position on defense is inside linebacker because we had guys that made a ton of tackles over the last couple of years and some of those young guys, they seem like they know what they're doing now and you could see it in the run game, they're getting where they need to be.''
Saturday's Spring Game pitted the Navy vs. the White in an intra-squad scrimmage.
Points were obviously awarded for touchdowns, extra points and field goals but defenses were also awarded points for turnovers, 3-and-outs, sacks and third and fourth-down stops.
The Navy finished with a 50-35 victory and Schurig said the spring as a whole was a good start for preparations for the 2023 season. Washburn will open '23 with a tough test, traveling to Pittsburg State before playing their home-opener on Sept. 7 against Missouri Southern.
"It is for sure and obviously at our level and all college football what you do in the summer is a big factor,'' Schurig said. "That's all volunteer stuff but we need them to work hard in the summer to be ready in August.''
