Monday, August 11th
Unexpectedly was there the whole practice. I now remember, why I usually wait until full pads to attend. There's so much to learn and everything is mostly drills and more limited plays. Sorry in advance for a pretty plain update.
I was only able to focus on the skill position drills. In the passing drills, all the qbs looked solid with accuracy and touch. However, AhYat looked the most polished and consistent. Jensen and Flowers were about the same. They were mainly working on short to medium passes. Most the emphasis was touch than velocity. No qb struggled, which is encouraging.
Not any errant passes. All the skill position guys looked very comfortable catching the passes in drills. However, one hb really surprised me at his receiving skills. Hashim Jones has great hands, control, and is very smooth in receiving. He's got great size also. I'm guessing he'll play 4 games to save his redshirt. My 1st impression of him is terrific.
They then split up into 7 on 7 and 11 on 11. The results were a split decision. Front 7 defense slightly won the running game battle. Run defense looked surprisingly tough.
Speaking of surprises, the offense won the passing game match up. Then again, it was mostly short to mid range passes. Very little emphasis on long passes and hanging in the pocket. The qbs also did well spreading the wealth, including TE utilization. Rohrer and Gale got more action I expected. Davis, Bohannon Wortham, Bridges and Hendrix all made plays. However, Bohannon's routes and hands stood out to me. He reminds me a lot of Racanelli. Guernsey had ice on his back upper leg, nothing to serious though.
In 11 on 11, the OL opened a few gaping holes for the halfbacks. Of note AhYat and Flowers seemingly got the most 11 on 11 reps. Not sure why Jensen didn't get as many.
As for OL play, they were solid. Run blocking needs more consistency. Pass blocking was great for the short to medium passing. I'm not sure where they're at for longer sustained pass blocking.
However, Norcross has their attention. The man is your old fashioned hard ass. He doesn't shy away from ass chewing or giving kudos. I won't give names, but a few OL got major ass chewings. Shortly after, those same OL for Kudos and exuberance from him. The man doesn't mince his words either.
I won't get into specific details regarding Wortham. I'll just say, he's definitely a true Swiss army knife. He's going to be used in more ways than Bergen.
Defensively, they played well as a group. Run game defense was much better than expected. Looked very quick and gap sound. Also, nobody got majorly burned in pass coverage They were consistently near the ball and limited big play opportunities well.
That's pretty much all I have from this practice. Maybe someone else was paying more attention to Defensive individuals and will add more. I'll try getting out Tuesday and Wednesday too.
