CHRIS CODUTO/Arizona Daily Wildcat Sophomore runningback Mike Bell scampers past senior Joe Siofele during the Arizona football team's first intra-squad scrimmage Saturday at Arizona Stadium.

New defensive formation makes debut Saturday at football's first scrimmage

The Wildcat football team held its first scrimmage of the spring on Saturday morning, in front of a small crowd at Arizona Stadium.

This was UA's sixth practice session in a series of 15 during the spring football campaign.

"The enthusiasm and excitement was good," said head coach John Mackovic. "I told (the players) ÎYou have to take this as a game day.' I think they did a good job with that."

Arizona went through about 30 minutes of drills and then scrimmaged for approximately an hour and a half. The team went through various scenarios and switched between the first and second teams most of the morning.

With the new 3-4 formation installed, the defensive side of the ball controlled most of the scrimmage early. They kept the offense out of the end zone until late in the scrimmage, when sophomore runningback Beau Carr scored a touchdown from 23 yards out.

"We had a lot of hustle and a lot of good hitting on both sides," Mackovic said.

The Wildcats appeared to be getting used to the new defensive scheme, recording nine sacks overall, including 2.5 by junior defensive lineman Vince Feula. Sophomore defensive end Marcus Smith added two sacks of his own while junior cornerback Luis Nunez had the only interception of the day.

The defensive highlight of the day came when senior safety Clay Hardt made a diving pass deflection to thwart a long pass play.

"Defensively our linebackers and our secondary were really active," Mackovic said. "Our tackling was pretty crisp and sharp, especially for the first scrimmage."

2001 All-Pac-10 cornerback Michael Jolivette returned to the field for his first game-like action, but said he is still not 100 percent.

Jolivette tore his ACL last season and said he is working his knee back into shape.

"(My knee) is a little sore. I just have to keep rehabbing it," Jolivette said. "I feel like 85-90 percent right now."

Offensively, a major bright spot for the Wildcats was the play of the team's two returning quarterbacks. Sophomore Nic Costa and redshirt freshman Ryan O'Hara took most of the snaps, going a combined 14 of 28 for 142 yards. Costa was 5-of-12 for 43 yards while O'Hara completed 9-of-16 for 99 yards and threw UA's lone passing score. O'Hara found junior tight end Clarence McRae in the endzone for a 13-yard touchdown pass on the team's final possession of the day.

Mackovic said a big goal for the day was to stay balanced offensively between the run and the pass.

"We tried to be as balanced as possible," said Mackovic. "We tried to be 50-50 with the run and pass."

In total, 11 different receivers caught passes and four different players carried the ball.

Junior receiver Ricky Williams led all receivers with three catches for 26 yards and senior Juan Valentine finished the day with two catches for 26 yards.

Despite spreading the wealth, the Wildcats struggled catching the ball as a unit. The team dropped nine passes, with Mackovic attributing a lot of that to the youth of his squad.

"A couple of our young guys dropped passes that should have been caught," said Mackovic. "This is the first time a lot of these guys have been in there (during a scrimmage)."

In addition to his touchdown, Carr finished the day with 45 yards rushing on eight carries.

Senior place kicker Bobby Gill was 1-of-3 on field goal attempts, but did make his longest attempt of the day from 44 yards out. Redshirt freshman Nicholas Folk missed his only attempt from 35 yards away, but did convert both of his extra point attempts.

The Wildcats will hold two more practices this week on Tuesday and Thursday before suiting up for Saturday's annual Red-Blue scrimmage at Arizona Stadium.