Spring Practice Report for 3/30/09

1. There were 7 players on the beach. I would also add one more to that list after today's scrimmage. I don't think it was anything very serious though. It could have been a ligament tear but I highly doubt that since he was able to walk off the field.

2. The players were in full pads today and they all looked very excited to get on with practice. The defensive players were exceptionally vocal and were constantly jumping around before anything actually happened. You could tell they just wanted to hit someone.

3. The team spent a good amount of practice working on punt returns. The two players that were returning most of the punts were Tarrant and Roddy. Roddy also showed off a little of his passing skills today. He would catch punt returns that were kicked about 45 yards away. He would then proceed to throw the balls back to the punters. He consistently threw 45 yard lasers in perfect spirals back to the punters. The punts, by the way, looked okay with Blair sending a couple about 50 yards downfield.

4. They did some more drills and then they broke up into A-backs and Linebackers and then Wide Receivers and Defensive Backs. They had two QBs assigned to each group. All the QBs looked better throwing in these drills than they did last week. Josh threw a couple of lovely long passes. The A-backs also showed off their skills with several amazing catches. Sometimes the QBs didn't have anyone to throw to because the DBs were covering so well. Although there were flashes of brilliance, the whole passing game (QBs and WRs) still has a long way to go.

5. Tevin had a particularly bad day today. He did not look ready and was constantly out of the play mentally. He had several botched snaps and fumbled pitches where he didn't get on the ball quick enough. He got chewed out several times during the day.

6. I think I just noticed today that Josh throws so much better on the run than he does staying in the pocket. All the passing plays that went on today that involved an option pass, Josh nailed everyone of them. His long ball was effective at times, but when he was moving it just looked smoother and more accurate.

7. When they finally did scrimmage today, the defense looked very stout. The first string offense moved the ball fairly well and had some really nice runs, but the first string defense held the middle of the field in check. Josh had some amazing runs today and looked just as quick and agile as he did against Boston College. He out juked defenders left and right and had them on the ground. Anthony Allen had some really nice catches and worked well with Josh on the edge. Bebe was putting defenders on the ground and not letting up. Dwyer did not look spectacular today but the blocking on the line was not that great either. Pass protection was great at times and horrible the next. We still have a long way to go in this area.

8. I saw something today that I had never seen before in my entire time watching our team play. Today Jaybo was executing a toss sweep to the A-back when the pitch was intercepted by Sedric Griffin. The linemen that was supposed to block Griffin completely missed him leaving him totally unblocked. Jaybo fumbled a couple of snaps today and so did Tevin. I still think the constant switching of centers is making it hard on the backup QBs. Josh did not seem to have any trouble taking the snaps.

Groups of people or individual players that had a Good day:

Josh Nesbitt, Sedric Griffin, Ben Anderson, The DBs, Anthony Allen, and Bebe Thomas

Groups of people or individual players that had a Bad day (one way or another):

Tevin Washington, Dieke, and The Oline (half of the time)