Practice 8/8/11 Recap

http://www.allbuffs.com/showthread.php/63909-8-8-Practice-Report
Today was the first day in pads. You could tell the players were excited to hit and the coaches had to hold them back a bit.
QB’s: Hansen and Hirschman really struggled in the 11 ons. More so with Hirschman, he looks good in drills but struggled in live action. Schrock seems to be ahead of Dorman
RB: Bieniemy really gets after his RB’s. He constantly gets on Speedy to, “stop dancing” and to “get upfield.” I think EB’s favorite phrase is, “you have got to be sh****** me.” No one appears to be ahead for the #2 spot. D.D. will probably be #4 tho. The funny thing is all our RB’s look pretty much exactly the same. All short 5’7 guys. Harrington still looks good at FB. He can catch the ball and get upfield.
WR’s: Richardson is a beast. He can run, catch, jump. He can do it all, but he is still really thin so hopefully he holds up. Toney looked better pass catching today. Canty reminds me of that Banks guy from KSU. But, him and Vincent were in Kennedy’s dog house today. McCulloch was running in the top 5 WR’s imo
TE: DaVaughn is a horse out there. He can catch the ball but he got absolutely beasted on by Kasa during blocking drills.
OL: They still seem to have trouble in pass pro during 11 ons. We should hope to God we don’t have to use much of our 2nd team OL
DL: As I said earlier Kasa looks much improved. He destroyed Thornton. Obi still looks amazing out there. He was a force to be reckoned with on goal line situations. Chidera isn’t just a pass rusher, he can stop the rush now too. Nembot looks like a gentle giant. Ideally he needs a redshirt year. Tui was working extra with Richter
LB’s: Webb really flies around out there. He seems to be a playmaker like Terrel Smith. Rippy is looking good with Major. That’s my guess for starting LB’s as of right now. Daigh made a nice play in pass coverage with the 2nd teamers. He is big, but physically not quite there yet. Still needs some bulk
CB’s: Still musical chairs with the CB’s. Henderson had an outstanding INT to finish of the 11 ons. He’ll play a lot. Josh Moten actually impressed me a today. He was physical and was fighting a lot with Toney over the ball. Vigo looks like it’s all there, but he hasn’t put it all together yet. Deji acts like a leader of the D. Him barking out orders to seniors was kinda funny. No one has really put together a string of good practices here. Orms was still resting his “calf” but he got up for a bit and took off his wrap and ice.
S: Terrel is still flying around making plays. Polk is a leader on the D with Perkins. He points out guesses on Offensive plays and shouts out orders. Hopefully that’s an indication that Safety has become more instinctual for him, because it is certainly all there physically.
K: Castor appears to be #1 K. What Oliver lacks in leg he makes up in form. His balls really go end over end every time
P: Uhhh… maybe I shouldn’t comment on this one for my sake

In watching Tyler I did have one concern. He held on to the ball far too long on a couple of plays. Coaches called him out a couple of times.

WR – Clemons has been getting some heat for not coming down with balls, he had a better showing today.

RB – Tony Jones, from what I have read, had his best practice. He had a couple of nice runs and a made a play after a catching a screen pass. Speedy did catch some flack, as mentioned by Allbuffs, for dancing too much. This was a problem for speedy last year but from watching today he seems to be making progress. His longest run today came off of a quick cut and burst up a hole with no studder steps. EB should be the biggest contributor to Speedy’s game for sure.

TE – where the heck is Slavin? After having a monster spring game I would expect more pub about him. I’ve read a lot of recaps from practices thus far and he gets no mention. There wasn’t much of a change today but it’s still early.

Ryan Miller was very vocal today. He’s a senior and he’s taken the reins for sure. He had a great practice but still needs to work on getting a little lower on some blocks.

Special teams – This might be the most troubling aspect of our team thus far, right behind CB. There is absolutely no consistency. What worries me most is the unit as a whole is receiving no one on one tutelage. Brookhart has his hands full as the passing game coordinator which leaves little to no time for coaching the kickers. This would be fine in most instances but our kickers suck.
 
West End Tavern – Behind Boulders lack of special teams and unidentifiable corner backs there appears to be a void in establishments that serve good wings. West End’s sauce was great but they were definitely not smoked. Don’t even get me started on Harpo’s wings, driest meat in town. This by far has to be my biggest worry going into the season. Until this gets fixed I will have to import my wings from Denver’s Moe’s BBQ on Broadway or my neighborhood favorite Big Hoss BBQ wings. They did have a great bourbon/whiskey selection. The Stranahan’s on the rocks was splendid.

I kicked one year in High School and got 1st team All-State… I turned down D1 schools who wanted me to kick to go play LB for a year at a D2 school. Only to get my ACL ripped like a new inmate in prison!

I started kicking for a local semi pro team last year… Kickoffs are usually 70 yards. 55 yard range on FG’s. Solid from within 45. I know I’m no pro, but I literally think I could beat what CU has been trotting out there lately.

Maybe I could negotiate with Embo a way to skip the whole school thing and show up for a practice or two during the week and play in games while I continue to sell insurance for a living?