Notes from today's scrimmage

It has taken defensive tackle Terrill Byrd all of two weeks to make the move back up the depth chart from second team to where he’s knocking on the door to the first team again.

“I guess the best way I could put it he started a lap behind and he’s caught up real quickly,” Brian Kelly after Saturday’s practice. “I don’t know what the reps were today. I know that he wasn’t on the first team as of yesterday, but he was in the backfield a lot so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s back being a first-teamer for us.”

Byrd, a second-team All-American last year, was held out of the first week of spring practice after he paid a citation for smoking marijuana. He was also demoted to the second team and suspended for the season opener.

But Kelly said it serves no purpose to keep Byrd on the second team as a punitive measure if Byrd is doing all the right things to merit reinstatement to the first team.

“I can’t hold Terrill Byrd back if he’s making plays on the field,” Kelly said. “It was punitive to start, but once he came back to practice, now you’re going to be evaluated just like everybody else on our football team. I don’t think you carry that (on). Then a kid, how does he perform and progress every day if you carry that weight on his back? So we took it off.”

At the same time, Kelly said, he has told his coaches to prepare to play without Byrd.

“If he can’t make the right decisions, it doesn’t matter to me whether he can make all the plays,” Kelly said.

PRAISE FOR ANDERSON: Redshirt freshman Chazz Anderson continues to impress Kelly with his play in spring practice and now looms as a bona fide competitor for the starting quarterback position with one week to go in spring practice.

Anderson completed eight of nine passes for 98 yards and one touchdown during a scrimmage at the end of practice. He also ran three times for 46 yards, including a 39-yard run that set up the touchdown pass to Armon Binns.

“I thought Chazz moved our offense pretty good,” Kelly said. “He’s what I’ve been saying over the last couple of weeks. He’s competing for a starting position.”

Anderson and Demetrius Jones shared most of the first-team reps during the scrimmage, with Jones going 1-for-4 for 4 yards. He also rushed eight times for -8 yards. “Demetrius is coming along,” Kelly said. “He’s not as far along as Chazz is, but he’s an athletic kid. He wouldn’t have been able to get the snap off a week ago. I try to keep it all relative to his development. He needed to get out there in a competitive situation and it was really good for him.”

IMPROVED RUNNING GAME: Although there were few running plays called in the scrimmage, the Bearcats have shown an improved ability to run the ball this spring, which was one of Kelly’s priorities when practice began.

“If there’s anything that we wanted to get out of the spring it was the ability to run the football,” Kelly said. “We should be OK throwing the football. We’ve got a pretty good offensive structure. I would say that’s probably the highlight of our spring is the development of our quarterbacks and our offensive line.”