I appreciate the work you guys do, so if you don't mind, I'd like to share my thoughts from practice this morning.
1. No pads, but still intense. They were getting after it at the line of scrimmage and in the secondary. There was a pretty gnarly collision on a jump ball, which Nelson Spruce came down with. "They" say a team will ultimately take on the character of its coach(s)...this will be a good thing in this situation.
2. They were focused on 2 minute drill today so a lot of passing and nickel D. Hansen is far and away the best QB, but even he looked erratic at times. Has a tendency to hang onto the ball too long, but did make some nice throws, including a beauty to Gray in the corner. Gray looks good in the slot; precise routs and good hands. Schrock and Burnette switched off running the 2nd team. I think Schrock was better today. He orchestrated one nice drive that was capped off by a Tony Jones TD run, which was designed for the A gap but he bounced it outside. Burnette OTH forced a terrible throw into coverage that was picked by Harlos (who was running w/the 2's).
3. We have two legit safety's. It's very obvious that Perkins and Polk are the leaders of the D. They are very vocal and they fly around the field. Major and Rippy are locks. Webb and Nobriga got a lot of looks as well.
4. We have some guys who definitely "look the part": Toney Clemons is a prototype WR. He does drop some, but he looks damn good when he gets it right. He made a sick finger-tip catch near the end zone that excited the crowd. Ryan Miller is a beast. Nuff said. Nick Kasa looks great. He was playing both inside and out today. Ryan Deehan has the body, but twice he went up for jump balls against a smaller defender and couldn't come down with it. Potentially a serious weapon though. Nembot is a freak. I'm torn because he definitely needs more coaching, which would warrent a redshirt, but he's just too much of a specimen not to throw in on obvious passing sitches to let him punish somebody. Finally, Mcculough. He seriously looks like just like Mccafrey. Somebody else mentioned earler that he scraped and bloodied his leg and Embo told him to suck it up. I dug that. I can't include PRich in this section cuz he so freakin skinny! But it was business as usual as he continued to light it up.
5. We are deep at DL, and this is without Uzo-Diribe. They are able to mix it up with different combos of bodies. Juda was on the field a lot. Hartigan looks tiny and I didn't see much out of him. But his time to shine will come when they strap it up and he's able to get after the QB. Pericak is fundamentally solid.
6. The CB sitch remains a mystery. They mix it up a lot. Surprisingly (or maybe not), Greg Henderson was the only one consistently running with the first team. Vigo was out there a lot too, along with Jaffe and Sandersfield.
7. Unfortunately, I can't give a great report on the freshman as I don't know all of their jersey #'s yet. There were definitely a few who stood out. In no particular order: DD, Mcculough, Nembot, Juda, Spruce, Harlos, Henderson.
8. O'Neil will be the punter. He is the most consistent. Grossnickel can out-distance him from time to time, but he has a bad attitude. He looks like Eeyore and it's annoying.
That about wraps it up. Can't wait for the scrimmage on Saturday!