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Practice Report 8/5

slider

Hasta la Viska
Club Member
This one may not be as in-depth because I had to leave a little early.

QB's: Hansen is definitely #1 but I'd feel comfortable with Hirschman if need be. But, I'm glad we have Dillon coming in. Schrock is still even with Dorman (but he had a spectacular throw to Darden in 11 ons.
RB: BLock and Tony are battling out for #2. I really think D.D. will be a player for us
WR: I got to see a lot more WR action today. The battle for #3 WR is pretty intense. Kennedy was making sure no one was dropping any balls. Gray looks really athletic and he has soft hands. I think he'll win the battle out but Canty and Spruce aren't far behind. But, we're not done seeing the white walk-ons playing as I think Espy and Cefalo will get some PT this year.
TE: They were definitely thrown to a ton in 7 and 11 ons. You can tell they will be an emphasis in the new O. Thornton runs like a gazelle but he runs really tall which hopefully doesn't lead to injuries.
OL: I think he got a player in Asiata. He is HUGE and he looks really athletic. At one point he and Nembot got into a scuffle and Asiata looked like he was ready to go to blows. That drew some cheers from the Defense and it was good to see some fire. Ryan Miller is enormous but he still gets down the field really well. OL will definitely be our strength this year but I wish we had Iltis. Munyer or Daniels will win it imo
DL: Didn't see as much DL today but Nembot definitely looked a lot more comfortable doing drills. He didn't make mistakes on the simpler drills. I love our DT depth but I'm still skeptical of our DE depth. Hartigan looks more like an OLB still and I think he'll play that more.
LB: Rippy and Webb work well together. I'm pretty satisfied with our LB corps. Not very many OLB/DE tweeners that I think Kanavis wants tho. I think Ahles would be good to move back here as it appears that Harrington is the #1 FB but there isn't much seperation.
CB: They were rotating in different CB's pretty much every play in the 11 ons. No one appears to have seperated themselves. Gregory Henderson looks really fast tho. Sandersfeld actually looks pretty good our there.
S: Polk and Perkins have the starting job on lock. After Terrel there isn't much so hopefully we pick up a stud this recruiting class.
K: Castor and Oliver looks pretty even. Oliver is much smaller height wise
P: Brundage and Grossnickel look even as well. Grossnickel looks much improved and they both get good hang time on their punts. And a S/O to UtterBuffLUv and Darraigh, he kicks the ball well but ultimately I think Brundage or Grossnickel will start.

I have to say that these coaches won't accept anything less than spectacular. Bieniemy let the 3rd team mess up once but after that they were, "fired" for messing up again. That was an awesome moment. Embree seemed less vocal today but he was still getting on guys. Rip Scherer is the black sheep of the coaching staff as he is much less vocal.

Overall the Offense is ahead of the Defense which I personally like to see. They did a lot of 11 ons to breed some competition imo. They are remarkably physical despite not being in pads. Just don't fumble or tackle the player or you'll be "fired." It seems like they spend a lot more time doing 11 ons than the previous regime did.

I'm very confident our ST's will be improved. A good chunk of practice was delegated to ST's. We will block some punts this year and that's a guarantee.

Sorry this recap isn't as long as yesterdays but someone else can pick up the slack:thumbsup: Go Buffs
 
Nice work. I added my update from today to yesterdays thread. I thought we should just update the title everyday instead of making a new thread everyday.
 
And a S/O to UtterBuffLUv and Darraigh, he kicks the ball well but ultimately I think Brundage or Grossnickel will start.
One thing to note is these last two days is the first time D has ever kicked under pressure so he still needs to get used to that. I think it was a good sign for him that they had him do the rugby punt and the fake. Embre also pulled him aside and said something personally im interested to find out what that was.
 
jimminy christmas! How many people do i have to hit with the ol gleeb gun before I can hit slider between the eyes???
 
My report from the other thread
UPDATE August 5th:

EB dropped 5 F bombs in the first 5 minutes... it was awesome

Punting: The O-Line was horrible so all 3 guys were under immense amounts of pressure
All three hit one really good ball and two average.
They had Darragh do the rugby punt and the Fake punt pass in which he threw a perfect spiral and made the completion haha.

One thing I noticed is that the ball makes a whole different sound when Tyler MCulloch* catches the ball. His hands are huge and the ball just sticks. So far he looks like the best freshman reciever.

Logan Gray runs really sharp routes.

Castor hit some decent kicks at the beginning of practice but the ball just doesn't spin like its supposed to when he hits it.

I left a little early so thats all I can remember today if you ask about a specific player or something i might be able to tell you a few things.

Oh and best of all it was good seeing Nik again
 
Good writeup, but you can't tell much with players running around in tshirts and shorts. Lets wait untill MOnday, when they put on the pads.
 
one thing that really bothered me during the hawk error (era) was the way practices were run.

for any old-timers, can you compare and contrast the pace, approach, and executional philosophy between now, hawkins, gb, skippy, mac, etc.

i've seen practices under all but embree...

hawkins were far and away the worst in terms of planning and approach, etc. skippy's weren't great either.

gb's and Mac's were the best.
 
Was nice to take the family to a practice today. Saw about 1 1/2 hrs or so, some QB & receiving drills, punting and some of the 11-on. As mentioned yesterday, the word is Finish. The coaches were all emphasizing finishing the play. This will be an effort team. I also liked the "firings" for breaking the tackel rule. I thought why punish aggressiveness at first, then rethought that what they are doing is building discipline. What is the difference between that and any other penalty at this point?

I was very impressed with the size of Asiata and Nembot (can someone please provide a pronunciation guide on his name?). These guys are large human beings.

Hansen looked poised and threw solid passes. Agree with Slider regarding the punting, if I had to choose today, I would have a hard time choosing between Brundage and ZG, but would have gone w/ ZG on the very short assessment. He does have a strong leg.

One thing I don't recall being mentioned is that BLock looks great on the repaired ankle.

Wish I could make it to a practice in pads or scrimmage, but heading back to Virginia on Sunday. The rest of you fine Buffs will have to keep up the good work reporting practices.

Nik... great to chat with you today. UtterBuffLuv(pretty sure it was you)... nice to meet you.
 
i keep hearing about the firing thing. what does that mean?

I think its pretty clear.

donald-trump-youre-fired.jpg
 
I just wanted to add a couple small things. PRich looked like a leader out there with the WR corps. He was pushing the frosh to "finish" among other things.

But, it was a beautiful day out. Once the sun went down a little bit... with the black jerseys and the sun shining off the gold helmets, it was a thing of beauty.
 
Great work slider, keep the updates coming, good stuff. Love the no-nonsense attitude, refreshing!
 
I wouldn't count O'neill out of the punting race. I think Embree likes this kid a lot. In 6 mos he has gone from a fantastic soccer and basketball player with poor punting form to a guy who is in the mix.

I'd expect him to stick around as an athlete and be a competitor.
 
It was great to see some of you out there. I hadn't seen UBL since the car breakdown/lost hoops ticket incident last year. I got to meet OU and fam, which was extremely cool. Slider big-timed me, I guess. :smile2:

As far as practice and the team, I'll give some quick observations:

1. The Freshmen. Definitely pass the eyeball test more than in years past. Players like Asiata, Nembot, Creer, Parker, Greer, Clark and Washington stood out as being very put together for freshmen. The freshmen I'm expecting to redshirt are Mustoe, Cotner, Dorman and Tu'umalo. Goodson looks like he's going to be a playmaker. So does Harlos. Our 3 WRs are a solid group with McCullough, Spruce and Vincent. Schrock is a walk-on to watch at QB - nice arm and good size, but needs some coaching on mechanics and footwork (sleeper).

2. The Vets. Kasa looks like a DE again instead of a blocky guy with no position being forced to DT. Nobriga added a lot of good weight and should lock down the OLB position so that Major can play his natural WILL spot. Obi looks like our best DT and Bonsu's moving well but needs to get back into game shape now that he can go 100% on that knee. Sandersfeld is a valuable guy who should see the field backing up all the DB spots, but he should not be a starting CB at this level. Bell's the CB who still looks the best to me, but he's got to come on and win the starting CB spot. I'm expecting Deji to be one of our starting corners - the lightbulb has definitely come on for him. Perkins is our best DB and the guy we can least afford to lose. Polk still needs to have it all come together so that he can play loose and instinctive. When/if that happens, he'll be an absolute beast. Hansen is a solid QB who is the clear #1. Nice to see him be the short guy among our QBs. Hirschman keeps improving and the other guys have a long way to go to catch him as the #2. Burnette looked like a different guy from the spring and made some nice throws. Seems like we're getting some great QB coaching from Scherer. Speedy looks better than ever and is focusing on running more north-south. He made a couple jump cuts that were just sick. The best part was that he finished them by immediately turning on the jets to get upfield instead of running toward the sideline. B-Lock is back and I didn't notice any limp. That ankle looks almost 100%. Jones doesn't look like a game changer, but he looks like the kind of back who will set tone and always get us positive yards with a high YPC (more Emmit than Barry - opposite of Speedy). Harrington and Ahles can do more from the FB position than lead block. I'll leave it at that so that I don't give anything away. Our TEs were surprising. Deehan is more athletic this year. Thornton can be special. Slavin does everything well and showed some agility after the catch on one sequence that stood out to me. At WR, Richardson looks like he'll command a double team. He's quicker and a better route runner now, not just a deep threat. Clemons looks smooth and comfortable - potential breakout season. Gray was a very nice addition who has good size and moves well. Canty is incredibly quick and the big thing it seems he needs as the next step in his progression is to have the game slow down so that he's understanding coverages and knows when he can slow down, sit down in an opening, and square up to make a nice target for the QB. Darden made a spectacular catch on a jump ball, but still needs to learn to sink his hips and gain more agility and burst off the line/out of breaks. OL looks pretty athletic. Expect us to run to the right a lot this year behind Miller and Harris. Those two are going to wreck some people. Too early to tell anything on kickers and punters, but I like the way they're working. Snapping looks 100% better. Ball's getting back quickly and consistently. Every kick and punt is timed and I think they're putting pressure on the kickers/punters to shave some time and make sure we don't have any blocks this year. No one stood out to me - good or bad. I see a lot of mediocre right now. Brundage is the most consistent punter and Grossnickle looks like an all-american on his best punts (but there are 2 mediocre punts and one clunker for every great one). I'm not sure that I saw Castor or Oliver miss a FG and they both got the ball up in a hurry. Castor's a different guy from the kicker who had that one attempt blocked last year.

That ended up being longer than I expected. Going to try to catch a little of this morning's practice if the boy ever gets up and also stop by tomorrow morning. I really want to see them in pads on Monday, but that's going to be tough to make with work.
 
I'm with you on Sandersfeld. But, we need someone who can atleast battle with a Robert Woods type player. I hope Bell or Olatoye step up
 
I'm excited to see if canty keeps his speed and quickness when the pads go on. He disappeared last year when that happened.
 
Ya everything will change when the pads go on and I'll make that practice for sure. I'll introduce myself nik if you're there
 
I was very impressed with the size of Asiata and Nembot (can someone please provide a pronunciation guide on his name?).


:nod: I feel like an idiot because I keep reading this name and thinking:
images



Pretty sure that's not right......help?
 
:nod: I feel like an idiot because I keep reading this name and thinking:
images



Pretty sure that's not right......help?

Well, the "Noob" part fits since he's a freshman. Plus he's big and scary. I say we just roll with "Noob Saibot" from here on out. I don't think he'll mind.
 
To early, but my money is on Orms and Deji to be the starting CBs. Sandersveldt will go back to his starting Nickel DB role.
 
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