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Spring Practice Report for 4/3/09

It was a little chilly to begin with, but then the sun came out, and made it a wonderful day. There were a ton of coaches from all around the country at practice today. I got to talk with several and got a better idea of what to look for at practice.

1. It was hard to find all the injured players today because it was very crowded. I counted at least 6 on the beach. Everybody looked pretty healthy today and really didn't see anyone get hurt.

2. They ran a variety of punt returns and kickoff returns. It was awesome to watch Tarrant out there taking punt returns. He even returned two back for touchdowns. I don't know if this was because of bad coverage or just great moves by Tarrant. Either way, it was exciting to watch.

3. It looked like most of the QBs struggled throwing today. Tevin had a decent day throwing, but both Jaybo and Josh couldn't stay consistent. I was talking with a high school coach today and he was commenting on how bad Josh's throwing mechanics were. He said that Josh was throwing with a long delivery and winding up before he threw. This was causing his balls to spiral out of control and affecting his accuracy. I never noticed it before and glad he pointed this out to me. Although the QBs struggled most of the day, they did have a couple of amazing throws here and there.

4. CPJ once again added several new plays. They are very similar to the ones he installed yesterday and probably will be used the same way. The plays he installed are plays that will be used when he has lulled the defense to sleep with the triple option. I think we will have lots of success using them.

5. This day belonged to the defense. The scrimmage looked pretty bad for the offense today. There were only a couple of plays on offense that got significant yardage. Marcus Wright and Josh had a couple of good plays, but overall it was not good. The defense was swarming today and you could just tell they were out for blood. The linebackers were definitely out in full force. Griffin and Jefferson were consistently in the middle of stopping plays and the defensive line was just manhandling the offensive line. It didn't even look fair at times. The pass protection was pretty much nonexistent today and the QBs were either getting blindsided or running for their lives. At one point, Jaybo just got rolled over by Rocker coming from his left. The offensive line was just not up for the fight. There were several times where the ball ended up on the ground due to a bad pitch and sometimes the QB was getting hit before he could even get the ball off.

Overall, today was a very frustrating day for the offense and Josh. You could see it on their faces and CPJ's tone. The defense won the struggle, but hopefully the offense can find a way to rebound and come out fighting tomorrow.