Sunday Buff Bites

The last week of spring ball begins tomorrow and then the long wait begins. Hopefully, we can get an early start on recruiting coverage and the coaching staff brings in a few more players this summer.

First and foremost, the forecast for next Saturday's spring game is 73 degrees, sunny and only a 10% chance of any precipitation.Hopefully we get some recruits up there, can't have a better weekend forecast than that.

Neil Woelk of the Boulder Daily Camera notices something that we have all mentioned the last couple of weeks. Except for wide receiver and quarterback, the Buffs are starting to look the a team with options, a team with depth at many positions. And by depth, we mean contributors. On defense, position battles at linebacker and cornerback are going to be exciting to watch. Specifically at linebacker, you might see the two leading tacklers from a year ago in Shaun Mohler and Jeff Smart not even start. It could easily be Marcus Burton and Michael Sipili in the middle with B.J. Beatty and Doug Rippy on the edges. We haven't even seen what Jon Major can do yet, either. 

On the offensive line, we haven't even come close to seeing what the final product is. Denver Johnson has not been able to evaluate players who have been injured this spring including starters at one time last year in Blake Behrens, Devin Head and Max Tuioti-Mariner. Throw in a banged up Ryan Miller and Matt Bahr and you can see that eventhough these five players who started at times last year have been out, the Buffs have still found plenty of players to contribute. Many think the starting five will be Nate Solder at left tackle, Ryan Miller at a guard spot, Mike Iltis at center, Matt Bahr was getting time at the other guard spot that is open in my opinion and Bryce Givens at right tackle. Still plentyof time until that comes to fruition.

Buffzone.com has a good wrap up of the Big 12 spring scrimmages yesterday, mostly on the corn. Be ready for Nebraska fans to start pushing QB Zac Lee for Heisman. Lee went 15 - 18 for 214 and 3 TDs and that was in limited duty. And yes, backup quarterback Latravis Washington also did well going 13 - 21 for 190 yards and two scores. The only problem with that line for Nebraska is Washington was a linebacker less than a month ago and hasn't played quarterback for three years meaning the Huskers defense gave up about 500 yards just through the air. It is spring ball and you can expect vanilla defenses and tons of personnel packages but that is a bundle of yards for a quarterback in Lee that hasn't really played a lick of college ball and a former linebacker in Latravis Washington. True freshman QB Cody Green also say some action, going 8 - 15 for 81 yards.

Ryan Thornburn of the Boulder Daily Camera reports that Jeff Bzdelik might lose one of his assistant coaches. According to sources, Charles Baker is expected to leave CU to take a similar position at USC working for Tim Floyd. Baker is considered to be a strong recruiter.

Tom Kensler of the Denver Post has a story on center Mike Iltis and his battle to recover from an ACL injury and learn a position that he has never played before.