Receivers grab spotlight as Bears close spring practice
In the second quarter of the University of Central Arkansas’ spring game Friday night, wide receiver T.J. Adams took a short sideline pass from Nathan Dick, executed a superb spin move and juke that shot him through four defenders for a 64-yard touchdown, the most exciting play of the night.
Later, running back Jackie Hinton made a dandy spin move of his own and reversed his field for the second of two 5-yard touchdown runs.
It represented an aspect coach Clint Conque wanted to see as the Bears closed spring practice with the specially devised spring game at First Security Field at Estes Stadium.
“Jackie Hinton is a special talent, and T.J. capped off a tremendous spring for him,” Conque said. “Those are two electric players. They give us big-play ability that we missed last year. Those two are playmakers. We combined them with two receivers who are recovering from injuries (Willie Landers and Dominque Croom) and we should be all right there.”
Most of the spring game featured the first-team offense going against the second-team defense and vice-versa. Conque, who oversaw the scrimmage from the field using an open mike most of the time, devised a scoring system to reward the defense for actions such as three-an-out, a turnover or a sack. In addition to scoring plays, the offense got two points for plays of 15 yards or longer.
By that format, the score ended 46-26 in favor of the offense. Technically, the offense produced 26 points. In addition to touchdowns by Hinton and Adams, Eddie Carmona booted field goals of 22 and 42 yards. Format for most of the evening was four quarters of 15 minutes each with a continuously running clock. Carmona missed an extra point that appeared to be either because of a bad snap or poor hold.
The offense lost two fumbles and was intercepted once. Defensive back Desmond Wilcox forced a fumble that he also recovered and had an interception in the last segment of the scrimmage that featured two possessions with 1:50 on the clock with many of the first-team players going against each other.
“Overall, everyone gave great effort,” Conque said. “I was disappointed that we had more turnovers than we had together in the previous scrimmages. We had a bit too many penalties, not much but a few. Both of our quarterbacks (Dick and Wynrick Smothers) did some good things and made some very good decisions. But in that two-minute drill, both quarterbacks made poor decisions.”
Hinton rushed for 54 yards on 10 carries. Anthony Blackmon had 33 of 13 carries, highlighted by an 18-yard run. Terence Bobo had nine carries for 31 yards.
Dick was 16-of-25 for 218 yards and a touchdown. Smothers was 6-of-15 for 60 yards and one interception.
Adams had four catches for 87 yards and a touchdown. Derek Owens caught five passes for 55 yards.
Defensive backs Seth Allison, Jerrel MCKnight and Radarius Winston along with defensive end Markell Carter led in tackles with six each. Carter also had a sack.
“Our running backs ran well and our quarterbacks (46 yards rushing combined) ran well,” Conque said. “We had some big hits on offense and our defense defended the run as well as it had all spring.
“And the big thing is we got out of this with no major injuries.”
