Practice Observations

WadeHokenson said:

Heading to my first practice today. Do you enter into the main doors at the Gibson-Nagurski complex (by the Hall of Fame) or is there like a gate straight into the outdoor field? Also, having never been there, I'm assuming there are some type of seats available or is it standing only? My 9-month pregnant wife is being a trooper and coming with, and I don't think she'll like me very much if it is standing only and she wasn't told about this. Thanks.

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Gopher07 said:

There are stands set up (at least there were last Saturday), and you enter through the garage door on the side of the indoor practice building.

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Spoofin said:

OK - it's all over twitter so we can discuss it here. How bad was the AWjr injury? I've heard everything from tweak to carted off.


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GFBfan said:

Was at practice. Didn't see him go down, only saw him on the cart going back into the indoor facility. Didn't see ice on him anywhere either.


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GFBfan said:

Spent the entire practice down on the end where the offense did quite a bit of their drills yesterday, so I watched the QB's and WR's quite a bit.
QB is a 2 horse race. Both of them looked good at times and missed a few during team portions.
Rhoda had a nice TD run on a designed option play. Did some good things in running the offense when they were in 11 on 11.
Croft had a scramble run for a TD during the same segment of practice and also did well in running the offense. Really too close to call as PJ said.
Douglas and A-Bell are really nice looking recievers. Run good routes and catch the ball when it is in their area.
Howard has some talent and speed, but is a little raw in the route running.
Hmielewski looked pretty good yesterday as well.
They were not going live full contact to the ground, but the run game looked good at times and at other times the D really did well in stopping the run. When only going full speed but not full contact it is hard to know how long or short some of the runs would be as they blow the whistle right when contact happens or is about to happen and you don't know if the O guy would have been able to break the tackle or not.
Smith, Brooks and McCrary looked tough and McCrary brings a different dimension as he is more of a punishing runner. The two FR in London and Ibrahim are similar in size to Smith and Brooks and will be good replacements in a couple years.
Defense has so many moving parts with what they can do personnel wise . They might want to be a 4-3 defensive team, but with the LB group they have they can run a 3-3-5 look, a 3-4-4 look or a 4-2-5 based on the offensive sets they see. Winfield going down with the hamstring injurt wasn't good, but it will help the better evaluate the rest of the DB's without him on the field. Hope he isn't out too long.
Pace of practice is fast and it seemed that the first and second groups got a ton more reps, because those groups were the only ones doing the 11 on 11 stuff throughout the whole practice. There were some tired players by the end of practice. Biggest difference with the pace is the coaches don't get a ton of time to instruct them on the field as they try to get through as many reps as possible Other practices I have been at in previous years coaches would do more instruction on the field after a rep. I would guess they spend a considerable amount of time after practice going over video and instructing the players.
Highlight of the day was at the end when they brought Santoso out to punt and if this staff member could catch the punt they would be done with running. He got three attempts, but the punts weren't close enough for him to catch. He gave great effort on the second one as he ran about 20 yards up and to the side and dove for it but could only get a hand on it. It almost looked like Santoso was kicking it away from him so he couldn't catch it and that maybe PJ instructed him to do that.

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Spoofin said:

Do they ever take players to the locker room on a cart as a precautionary measure? Honest question. I've seen very injured players walk off, but don't recall the opposite extreme?


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GFBfan said:

Spent the entire practice down on the end where the offense did quite a bit of their drills yesterday, so I watched the QB's and WR's quite a bit.
QB is a 2 horse race. Both of them looked good at times and missed a few during team portions.
Rhoda had a nice TD run on a designed option play. Did some good things in running the offense when they were in 11 on 11.
Croft had a scramble run for a TD during the same segment of practice and also did well in running the offense. Really too close to call as PJ said.
Douglas and A-Bell are really nice looking recievers. Run good routes and catch the ball when it is in their area.
Howard has some talent and speed, but is a little raw in the route running.
Hmielewski looked pretty good yesterday as well.
They were not going live full contact to the ground, but the run game looked good at times and at other times the D really did well in stopping the run. When only going full speed but not full contact it is hard to know how long or short some of the runs would be as they blow the whistle right when contact happens or is about to happen and you don't know if the O guy would have been able to break the tackle or not.
Smith, Brooks and McCrary looked tough and McCrary brings a different dimension as he is more of a punishing runner. The two FR in London and Ibrahim are similar in size to Smith and Brooks and will be good replacements in a couple years.
Defense has so many moving parts with what they can do personnel wise . They might want to be a 4-3 defensive team, but with the LB group they have they can run a 3-3-5 look, a 3-4-4 look or a 4-2-5 based on the offensive sets they see. Winfield going down with the hamstring injurt wasn't good, but it will help the better evaluate the rest of the DB's without him on the field. Hope he isn't out too long.
Pace of practice is fast and it seemed that the first and second groups got a ton more reps, because those groups were the only ones doing the 11 on 11 stuff throughout the whole practice. There were some tired players by the end of practice. Biggest difference with the pace is the coaches don't get a ton of time to instruct them on the field as they try to get through as many reps as possible Other practices I have been at in previous years coaches would do more instruction on the field after a rep. I would guess they spend a considerable amount of time after practice going over video and instructing the players.
Highlight of the day was at the end when they brought Santoso out to punt and if this staff member could catch the punt they would be done with running. He got three attempts, but the punts weren't close enough for him to catch. He gave great effort on the second one as he ran about 20 yards up and to the side and dove for it but could only get a hand on it. It almost looked like Santoso was kicking it away from him so he couldn't catch it and that maybe PJ instructed him to do that.

Not sure what the pay sites had to say about practice. Also, there wasn't any handout saying observations couldn't be posted anywhere, all the guy said when I entered the building was that I wasn't able to use my phone while there.
If you have any specific questions, you can post them here maybe I or someone else at practice can answer.

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GFBfan said:

One other thing I remembered. During an 11 on 11 part, I believe it was the 1's vs. the 1's and right when the Offense got out into position, Coach Fleck through his microphone "yelled" at Nick Connelly to leave the field and "fix his broken shoelace" and called for Blaise Andries to take his spot. Blaise has the size and skill to play this year. Good and bad, he only got in for one play and did a nice job sealing off his side as Demry ran a bootleg pass to his side and threaded the needle to Woz who had C. Coughlin draped all over him. Woz pulled it in and away from Carter and turned it up field for a TD pass play of about 15 yards.
Was funny before the play when Coach Fleck said that to Nick as he kind of made fun of Nick for looking down at his shoe.

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Oregon Gopher said:

Question for those that were there- what type of OL coach is Ed? Is he a screamer type who's down in the trenches with his guys or more relaxed and cerebral?


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Stuff said:

Sophomore receiver Hunter Register did not make the 105-player roster limit for fall training camp and could return to the team once school starts.

What in the world does this mean? How does he not make the roster limit?



I read this on the Pioneer Press.

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Oregon Gopher said:

Question for those that were there- what type of OL coach is Ed? Is he a screamer type who's down in the trenches with his guys or more relaxed and cerebral?

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Stuff said:

Sophomore receiver Hunter Register did not make the 105-player roster limit for fall training camp and could return to the team once school starts.

What in the world does this mean? How does he not make the roster limit?



I read this on the Pioneer Press.

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dpodoll68 said:

There is no limit on the number of people you can have on the roster overall, but there is a limit of 105 bodies you can have suited up and participating in fall camp. What this means is that there are at least 105 players they would rather have practicing than him. He will still be on the roster and eligible to play, but it's never a good sign when there are at least 20 non-scholarship players they would rather have practicing than you.

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zman said:

He was reasonably relaxed the day I was there. The only thing I saw that was kind of d*ckish was making a snotty comment to one of the lineman when he took his gloves off in order to take his helmet off. He got a condescending sounding "you mean you can't take your helmet off without taking your gloves off" comment. He was taking the helmet off to have a popsicle so it hardly seemed important. Not a big deal in the grand scheme but not really necessary either, IMHO.

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Stuff said:

Sophomore receiver Hunter Register did not make the 105-player roster limit for fall training camp and could return to the team once school starts.

What in the world does this mean? How does he not make the roster limit?



I read this on the Pioneer Press.

Click to expand...