First-year offensive coordinator Walter Wells paced the south sideline of Smith Stadium on Saturday.

For Wells, it was his first opportunity to call plays in a live-situation in Western’s first scrimmage of spring practices.

“It’s a new experience calling plays and doing things like that,” Wells said. “I made some mistakes, but the kids did a great job of rallying around it.”

While there was no winner, Western ran 98 plays, with the first half of the scrimmage focusing on first-down and third-down situations.

Coach David Elson said that the Toppers still need to get experience.

“I thought it was extremely sloppy and ugly at times,” Elson said. “But we know that they were young. We’ve got a lot of new things, and a lot of it is things that you know, with repetition, will be corrected.”

Not only was Saturday’s scrimmage the first chance for Wells to call plays, but defensive coordinator Mike Dietzel was also calling the defense live for the first time this spring.

“I think our coaches are doing a really good job of teaching and following up on things,” Elson said. “You can just see they’re getting more and more comfortable. You can’t avoid scheming against each other in the office. They’re running and really trying to get things up rather than trying to one-up the other.”

With both coaches taking care of play-calling duties, it gave Elson the opportunity to see other things.

“I’m not so concerned about the defense playing well and being where they’re supposed to be and coaching that one phase,” Elson said. “I can look at the way the quarterbacks are managing the huddle and managing the play clock and leading within the huddle and listening for different things.”

Wells inherits an offense with no clear-cut quarterback right now. Saturday’s scrimmage featured three quarterbacks: senior Brandon Smith, and red-shirt freshmen Anthony Sheppard and Kawaun Jakes.

Smith finished completing 17 of 22 passes, as well as throwing for one touchdown and rushing for another.

“Overall from an offensive standpoint, I’m really impressed with how how we’re doing so far,” Smith said. “For it being a new system, new coordinator, things like that, I didn’t think we’d be successful as we have been in the scrimmage.”

While Western took nearly all its snaps from the shotgun formation last season, already this spring Wells has implemented some sets under center.

“It’s an element that I think is needed, and there’s obviously some places that you can do it,” Wells said. “People’s first thought is to do it on the goal-line or short-yarded situations. We’re not always wanting to be under center in those situations cause you don’t want to tip anything. We want to be as multiple as we can, get different motions and different sets out of the same personnel groups.”

Western practices tomorrow and Friday morning. Its next full scrimmage is April 18.