Showed up an hour late, thinking I'd just skip all the warm ups and position drills and don't mean anything to me. But when I got there they just ran plays for about 45 minutes. I'd never seen that before so I wonder if I missed anything useful in the first hour, and what else had changed in the format.
So I fell down on the job and only saw about 45 minutes worth of football, and 15 minutes of it was the feel good walkon portion of the practice. I saw a few recruits.
Here are the few things I was able to see yesterday:
- Chris Hall still has eligibility left. This astounded me.
- Sherrod Harris ran a lot of zone read stuff, so we are not done with that offense yet. He looked pretty smooth, although they never asked him to do much. I've always liked Harris and I think he is comparable to James Brown (in a good way). I'm less terrified of Colt getting hurt than I was during the Chiles era.
- Brock Fitzhenry is faster than the walkons he went up against, so we have that going for us.
- DJ Grant held his own on the edge. How well he blocks will determine how much he plays.
- If Irby isn't healthy, I want to see us in the 4 WR sets again. Collins and Kirkendoll both looked good and are a perfect fit into what we do well. Buckner and/or Wiliams will provide the deep threat and free up everyone else.
- Mark Buchanon really did line up at guard. I have no idea what to take away from this.
- Not that yesterday was a great indicator of anything, but Tyrell Higgins might be our best non-Lamarr Houston option at tackle. He was quick and had decent separation thanks to his upper body strength. This is either a good sign or a bad sign.
- Lots of players look thinner. Jered Norton in particular looked better.
- Tre Allen got abused by Sergio Kindle towards the end of the practice. We should just move him to guard and be done with it.
- Earl Thomas played in the slot again and looked great all day. The way he improved last year provided a great example of why you should just let the young guys play at some point. They can't improve if they aren't on the field. Who cares who is better now when everyone is so young?
I'll be there all day today so there will be more to talk about, hopefully.