Thursday afternoon marked the first practice in full pads for the Cougars, they worked out for 90 minutes at Rogers Field, focusing on special teams, mainly getting around blocks while covering kicks for the first couple sessions before holding a couple sessions with individual position coaches and squaring off in a 51-play scrimmage with the No. 1 offense and defense battling for the first 14 plays...Jeff Tuel opened the scrimmage with a long pass to Jared Karstetter but the No. 1 offense was held out of the end zone after driving down inside five in each of its only two series, facing the No. 1 defense both times...the first three series had at least one big completion, including a nice catch by Marquess Wilson who leaped high in traffic to bring in a pass from Tuel before coming down near the goaline but was arguably ruled short of the end zone (the person doing the ruling was Cougar defensive coordinator Chris Ball, the offense disagreed but the deciding factor was coach Wulff by calling for a field goal)...the offense put points on the board in its first three possessions, getting two field goals from Furney (28 yds, 39 yds) and a 31 yarder from freshman Tyler McNannay...a couple highlights were a long pass from Marshall Lobbestael to Kristoff Williams, two touchdown passes from Connor Halliday to Bennett Bontemps, a nice catch by Gino Simone in traffic from Halliday, a huge blow up from defensive tackle Chas Sampson who blew through the offensive line and smothered a running back just as he took the handoff, a long pass from Lobbestael to freshmen wide out Henry Eaddy who got behind the defense and caught the ball in stride and scored easily, a couple loud smacks by freshman linebacker Chester Su'a during a pair of run plays...the two plays that stood out, mainly because of the celebration by the offensive players, came when redshirt-sophomore Jared Byers (who suffered a season-ending knee injury in last season's season-opener) caught a pass, headed up the sideline, made one tackler miss then carried two more defenders a few more yards before getting pushed down, drawing a loud cheer from the offensive players and a special moment for the veteran player coming back from injury...the other play was turned in by freshman wideout Dominque Williams who out-jumped DB Tracy Clark for a Halliday pass deep down the sideline and held on for the catch as he landed on his back, the offensive players erupted and Tuel, coming off the sideline, was the first to run downfield and congratulate the youngster...most of the scrimmage focused on the younger players getting a good number of reps in full pads and at game speed...Friday will be the first of five two-a-day practices for the Cougars this fall camp, the first practice is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. and the second slated for 3:30 p.m....GO COUGS!