Blankenship Pleased With Tulsa's Spring Practice Progress

The Tulsa football team has seven spring practices under its belt and as they prepare for a week off due to spring break, Head Coach Bill Blankenship says he is pleased with their progress thus far.

"This is essentially the half-way point for us with seven practices and Thursday's workout was the most significant scrimmage time we've had," said Blankenship. "We made the quarterbacks live in the scrimmage session which we thought was important. We need to see how they handle being tackles, being flushed out of the pocket and all those kinds of things."

"We've put in a lot of work, but a lot of progress has been made. I think we're a better team after seven days, but I think we're a long ways from being what this team can be. The real optimistic half of us as coaches think we've had a good spring so far, and then the other side says we have a long way to go before we're ready for Iowa State," said Blankenship.

Blankenship added that he saw positive progress on both sides of the ball after Thursday's scrimmage session, calling it a ‘split decision".

"I thought the day started out belonging to the offense. We saw big plays by Keyarris Garrett and the running backs played well. As the day wore on we went into some drills where we placed the ball on the defensive 30-yard line for the offense and put the defense in a bind, and the defense won three out of three. I thought it came out to be a split decision today between the offense and defense," added Blankenship.

The Hurricane will return to the practice field on Tuesday, March 27 for the final eight practices.

The Annual Spring Game is set for Saturday, April 7, at 1 pm at H.A. Chapman Stadium and admission to the spring game is free.