UM showed football best played in fall

ORONO – After sitting in the stands at Alumni Field year after year watching the annual University of Maine Blue-White spring football game, you learn a thing or two.

First, you learn it’s unwise to predict how Maine will do in the fall based on watching the Black Bears endure the final intrasquad workout of the spring. Might as well judge an entire movie by a 30-second coming attraction or a restaurant on the basis of its cheese and crackers.

For example, former UM star quarterback Mike Buck sat out the 1989 spring game nursing a sore knee. The game was a 17-7 yawner and everyone left nervous. That fall Maine rolled to a school-best 9-2 record behind a healthy Buck.

Predict stardom for a young player based on a Blue-White game? Forget it. The star of last year’s B-W was a backup quarterback named Brian Goff, who is no longer with the team.

No, what Blue-White football is about is understudies showing their desire to the coaches, and established players staying healthy, thus laying the groundwork for the depth chart in August. For hard-core fans, it’s a taste of pigskin to bide them over until September.

It’s good that Blue-Whites are like this. Otherwise this year’s contest held on Saturday might have scared off even the staunch-est of UM fans for the Sept. 3 home opener vs. Central Florida.

Blue more appropriately referred to the color of the swelling around the knees and ankles of no fewer than 12 players who either sat out with sprains or played sparingly. Hardest hit was the offensive line. Head coach Jack Cosgrove had only eight ambulatory hogs up front.

“We couldn’t do what we normally do because a lot of people weren’t here,” Cosgrove shrugged afterward.

Without enough linemen for two full teams, Cosgrove simply dressed the defense in white and the offense in blue. Then he ran groups of players in and out while conducting a controlled scrimmage. There was no clock. No official score.

There were, however, highlights:

Best arm displayed: Junior backup center Jeff Cipp, who with probable starter Mike Missbrenner sidelined had to handle the lion’s share of exchange snaps and long snaps by himself. He did so admirably.

“I thought it went pretty well,” said Cipp, who at 6-foot-1, 230 pounds, has some growing to do if he’s to threaten Missbrenner for the starting spot.

Best run: Senior wide receiver Steve Cates turned a 20-yard catch of an Emilio Colon pass near the left sideline into a 54-yard touchdown with a slick cutback against the grain and burst of speed that carried him across the field and into the end zone.

Best catch: Freshman wide receiver Brendan Prophett’s full-out dive and fingertip grab of a Joe Marsilio out-and-up toss for a 17-yard gain.

Best hit: Junior inside linebacker Ross Fichthorn’s collision with senior fullback Steve Knight after a seven-yard gain. The sound of these two Maine-born players’ combined 465 pounds meeting head-on was louder than the sound of any of the hits emanating from adjacent Mahaney Diamond through six innings of the first UM-Drexel baseball game.

Most ferocious display: By the dog that developed an attachment to one of the warmup footballs during pregame drills.

Best kickoff: By the kid who kicked the aforementioned dog off the field. There were no actual kickoffs in the game.

Biggest oooh from the crowd: When one of junior punter Jarrod Thebarge’s boots rocketed 65 yards – into the wind.

Biggest wishful thought: That former UM All-Yankee Conference stars Carl Smith, Claude Pettaway and Jamal Williamson, who were on the sideline, had some eligibility remaining.

Outstanding performance by a defensive player: Sophomore outside linebacker Shawn Stephenson, who intercepted two passes.

Outstanding performance by an offensive player: Cates, who caught an 11-yard scoring toss from Colon in addition to his 54-yard TD catch.

Most improved player from game’s start to game’s finish: Freshman placekicker Chris Binder, who missed his first two PAT’s, then hit a PAT and nailed a 33-yard field goal.

Most unselfish player: Senior Robert Tubbs, who switched from tailback last season to defensive back this season and looked very much at home while covering veteran receivers like Cates and Donny Ledbetter.

Cosgrove’s assessment after it was all over?

“We got as much out of it as we could, given the circumstances.”

That’s Blue-White in a nutshell.