Notes from Wednesday and Thursday Football Practice

Wednesday’s Practice

My brother went by yesterday and watched for about two hours some impressions

Positives
Dmac had a great run. It was draw and by the time he hit the
linebacker area he went into another gear and not one 1rst teamer could
even lay a hand on him.

Peyton looks the fastest he has ever been and still has great hands;
he made a spectacular catch between a linebacker and a safety.

Alex T has a leg. His field goal attempts blast off of his foot. He
also seems very focused. He is always just staring at the goal posts.

D J Williams from CAC is a man among boys. I think we will see some
playing time. Probably as a back up FB.

Ben Cleveland caught everything thrown his way, unfortunately he will
probably only be in when it calls for a pass.

The linebackers all look much bigger than what we have seen in the
past and seemed to move well.

Tim Horton has them working on a lot of drills to prevent fumbling.

Nutt got upset at an official who called holding on a pass play.
Official told him I call them as I see them. Nutt looked more pissed
at
the official than the player.


Negatatives

DMAC will only return punts if we get behind and need a miracle
this is based on the fact that he drops every other one. Felix drops
one in four. Knowing Nutts conservative nature expect to see P
Hillis back there.

The few plays they ran out of the Wildcat were stop immediately. As
soon as Dmac lined up as QB, every defensive player screamed Wildcat.
Hopefully in a real game things will be different.

Passing game very suspect. In the drills were there was no rush,
but a DB covering the wide receiver, Casey was not very accurate. A
lot
of balls were behind the receiver or uncatchable. Emert missed
practice. Nathan Dick has a strong arm and will eventually be better
than Casey. Brian Reader also throws a good ball. Joe Chisson
looks like a waste of a scholarship.

When they went 11 on 11 Casey hit two nice passes over the middle to
Monk, but they were scramble type passes. Probably on half of his
passes he would have been sacked before the ball was ever thrown. The
line still can’t pass block, but maybe with HDN proclivity to run
draws on 3 and 12, the defense will not rush as hard. He missed a bunch
of passes and one was intercepted for a TD. Supposedly he was tired
from all the reps. Expect to see a bunch of 5 yards and out passes.

The deep snappers were pretty inconsistent. The new scholarship guy
from Texas is currently is 2nd team to a walk on. One snapped sailed
over the punters head by about 8 feet.

At one point Reggie Herring jumped all over Fred Bledsoe for things
he screamed were freshman mistakes. I don’t expect Freddie to have a
breakout senior year-too bad.

Off well hope to see them in pads on Friday.


Thursday’s Practice

First the bad news. Marcus Monk went down with a knee injury on a pass
across the middle when he was leveled by Michael Grant. He hobbled to
the trainers table and was there for about 30 minutes before going to
the locker room.

He will have an MRI tomorrow to find out if it is an ACL. If it is
cartilage they said he would be out two weeks.

Practice lasted about an hour and a half and Brandon Barnett was out
there playing CB. The Hogs wasted no time getting into action. Emert
got
more snaps today than Casey. I'm not sure if it was because Casey took
every snap yesterday or if they were trying to give Emert a look.
Either
way Emert makes too many bad passes and was sailing the ball today.
Emert also fumbled 3 snaps. He has strep throat so that may have been a
factor.

(So, naturally, since Emert's sick, they gave him mo snaps....sounds
like a Nutt decision, lol. Woo)

Casey threw the ball pretty well with a few misses but he made a couple
of really nice passes. One was a 25 yarder to Hillis over the middle
where Hillis was cracked by Grant and it took Hillis about 5 minutes to
get up from getting the breath knocked out of him. Another was a fade
for a TD to Fish on a very nice pass.

Nathan Dick appears to be the #3 QB and his first pass was an INT by
Barnett.

The scrimmaging was a mixture of 1's vs 1's, 1's vs 2's and 1's vs 3's.
Overall, the defense got the better of the 1's vs 1's but the offense
made some plays too. Hillis went untouched up the middle for a TD.

Wilkins had a TD for the 2nd group against the 1's.

McFadden had a couple of plays that were blown dead immediately where
he would have had big gains.

One of McFadden's big plays was a run and one was a reception out of a
5 wide formation that I really liked.

I thought the O-line blocked better today, there were some blowups but
overall not bad considering the defense was sending some blitzes.

Grant, Fairchild, Powers, Richardson, Norton, and Broadway seemed to be
making a lot of plays. There were a few minor skirmishes. Valdez took a
freshman DE and drove him about 8 yards back after a play and they got
into it.

Lucas Miller made a nice catch got popped and had a minor shoving match
with one of the CB's. Fish and someone got into it.

Jermaine Love got into it twice with random offensive players. All of
it was minor but I thought it was good to see.

They didn't do much kicking or punting but they worked on punt returns.
Felix had the only drop. Barnett was working back there a little but
I'd
still say Smith, Fish, and Hillis are the favorites.

McFadden does not look like he wants to be back there, and I don't
blame him.

Overall, it was a good practice with a lot going on. I missed some of
the early goal line stuff because the players were in our way and we
couldn't see. The O-line was encouraging and the defense, while good,
wasn't as good as they have been but they still won.
(END)

Couldn't resist inserting a comment.

To me, it was just so fitting of Mr. Nutt. A kid's (Emert) got strep
throat (usually accompanied by a high fever) and Hapless and ReRun (his
father in law) say,

"Hop in dere boy, here's yur big chance....
It's only 102, ain't you tuff. I seen "Sis" catch and skin a beaver in
hotter weather with nothing but her eye teeth and her bare hands."

Of course Weber had probably diagnosed Emert with gout. ((