Some news from Yale's intrasquad scrimmage

Here are some notes from Yale’s intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday…

• The Bulldogs played all four quarters and ran nearly 200 plays. Reno said he wanted the team to run as many as possible to get a good look at, and a healthy amount of reps for, the quarterbacks on the roster.

• Right now, Reno says, there are five QBs in the running for the starting job: Derek Russell, Henry Furman, Morgan Roberts, Eric Williams and Logan Scott. They saw the majority of the reps Saturday.

“Of those give, they will start to separate themselves,” Reno said. “We’re looking at whole body of work.”

Don’t expect a starter to be named until the week of season opener against Colgate (Sept. 21).

• Defensively, the Bulldogs need to work on open-field tackling. That has been a concern early in camp and during the scrimmage.

• As expected, junior RB Tyler Varga is running hard and well. He broke off a couple of nice runs Saturday. Reno said freshman Candler Rich is the No. 2 RB right now.

• Freshman TE Leo Haenni made a couple of big catches. Haenni is a 6-3, 225-pound TE from Franklin, Ohio. Sophomore WR Grant Wallace also looked strong. As reported last week, WR Chris Smith is back. He was held out of the scrimmage (hamstring) as a precaution, but probably could have played.

• On the defensive side, freshman DB Robert Ries stood out, along with Kyle White. White moved from OL to DL this season.

• Right now, about half of the freshmen on the roster are on the (unofficial) two-deep depth chart. That includes highly touted OLB Victor Egu.

“He made a real jump last week,” Reno said. “Things are starting to slow down for him. He had a good scrimmage.”

• Reno said the PK spot is one of the top battles in camp. Jr. Kyle Cazzetta has really improved coming into camp, but freshman Bryan Holmes is challenging him. Holmes had 45 of 53 kickoffs downed for touchbacks as a senior last season.

• And once again, Reno made sure to point out how critical the senior leadership has been starting with captain Beau Palin.

‘They are great leaders,” he said. “This is a very close group, very tight. Part of that comes from being here all summer together. “

• Reno also noted the new turf at Frank Field should be finished within the next 10 days.