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Practice Observations

bob and 'holic thanks for the updates, keep them coming for us Out of Staters.
 
tis a pleasure. ill try to make one in the next week or so and let you guys know whats going on. i'm waiting for slider to give us a nice report, he writes much more eloquently than i.
 
thanks bob. Sophomore year has been much harder and I'm working 30 hours a week so it makes it very difficult to attend practice. However, I am planning on attending Friday's practice and hope to have a nice practice report up. Go Buffs
 
thanks bob. Sophomore year has been much harder and I'm working 30 hours a week so it makes it very difficult to attend practice. However, I am planning on attending Friday's practice and hope to have a nice practice report up. Go Buffs
:thumbsup:
 
thanks bob. Sophomore year has been much harder and I'm working 30 hours a week so it makes it very difficult to attend practice. However, I am planning on attending Friday's practice and hope to have a nice practice report up. Go Buffs

I was hoping to get there for Thursday's practice, but with it snowing now, it might be moved inside unless this is a very quick storm and it's all gone by the afternoon.
 
Thursday observations (short.)
A brief FG competition of five kicks each on Thursday right in front of where I was standing.
Goodman went either 2 for 5, or 3 for 5, at least two went wide left and into the parking lot. Grossnickle was 4 for 5, one attempt was blocked. His good kicks do not have the height of Goodman's misses, but they clear the line and are straight down the middle. Not close enough to action to see whether the blocked kick was a kicker error or the line leaving a hole for someone to punch through.

Both Goodman and Grossnickle took equal turns kicking FGs. Kirkwood was dressed in pads, but stayed on sidelines except for a few warmups. He did not compete for either punts or field goals. Two new walkon kickers (no idea their names) were watching but not dressed for practice. Matt DiLallo was at practice, watching.

On punts, Grossnickle looked a little rusty to start but was hitting 4.4 second hangtimes by the end of practice. They were doing a punt return drill and the balls kept drifting slowly down to the waiting PR, who would catch it and be immediately surrounded. The coaches kept yelling "this is not a fair catch drill, run!" but there wasn't anywhere for the guys to go when the punts were good.

A few guys were having trouble catching the ball on punts --- they could not hold on, and seemed to be paying as much attention to the approaching defenders as the ball arching overhead. A guy near me remarked that they have to get used to the timing of a new punter. Can't say for sure who the PR were, as a handful of students or maybe recruits kept managing to move around into my line of vision. I thought one of the guys who dropped a couple might have been Andre Simmons. Can't swear to it, though. Pretty sure Espy caught all his attempts. When he nailed a punt, Grossnickle had height and hit a nice spiral a few times. Goodman was struggling with his turns at punts, but I can't imagine he's practiced punting much the last few years.

Tried to watch the new WR Coach Prince, but he wasn't on the near field much of the time. From the fans, heard that Prince is very disciplined and has high expectations for the guys. Everyone seemed to think this was a good idea. (Walkon Kicker) Marcus Kirkwood practiced as wide receiver some of the times.

They didn't have roster sheets, so I had to go by recognizing a player or remembering his jersey number. DeVaughn Thornton looks like he's spent time in the weightroom, and moved really fluidly during drills. He was complimented for his play several times, as was Jack Harris, who looked bigger (both taller and more muscular) than I remembered last year. Clark Evans looked strong and athletic, as usual. Ditto Nick Kasa, who moved perfectly fine and didn't favor the rehabbed knee in any noticeable way. Hirschman (if he's #8) only threw a few passes, and both Cody and Tyler took turns at QB.

There was a coaches' clinic going on Thursday so there were a number of what appeared to be high school coaches coming and going, watching parts of practice. I saw a Valor sweatshirt, couple Broomfield Eagles, and some guy wearing a red jacket that said "Katy Texas." I couldn't remember why that should be familiar to me --- might have been a player parent, but he was hanging with the HS coaches.

Sorry I didn't get more detail on some of the positions and coaches. The kicking was going on right as I walked in, so I caught all that right away. It was freezing, I wasn't dressed for the declining weather and didn't stay long, but seemed energy was high among the players. The coaches kept their voices down and you couldn't hear what they were saying unless they happened to be on the field right in front of the fans. When I left, there were fewer than 20 or 25 fans watching, and I'd say all of them were shivering.
 
Thursday observations (short.)
A few guys were having trouble catching the ball on punts --- they could not hold on, and seemed to be paying as much attention to the approaching defenders as the ball arching overhead. A guy near me remarked that they have to get used to the timing of a new punter.

Can you even tell me how that makes sense??? What if someone has to return (God forbid) punts in a game?? The timing of a punter??

Anyway, rep for the practice report. I normally make jokes about your obsession with the kicking game, but I couldn't find anything in your report that would support my opinion on that...
 
thanks bob. Sophomore year has been much harder and I'm working 30 hours a week so it makes it very difficult to attend practice. However, I am planning on attending Friday's practice and hope to have a nice practice report up. Go Buffs
Hey kid, get your ****ing priorities straight!
 
Can you even tell me how that makes sense??? What if someone has to return (God forbid) punts in a game?? The timing of a punter??

Anyway, rep for the practice report. I normally make jokes about your obsession with the kicking game, but I couldn't find anything in your report that would support my opinion on that...

I debated writing any practice report since I didn't get much from observing today, except the special teams. I knew I would hear about it, but the kicking and punting was near where fans were allowed and much of the rest of practice was on the far fields.

As far as the timing, if I understand it:
our players were used to a 3.5 second or less hangtime for punts. (A couple of Goodman's punts today were 2.6 range for comparison.) When you have a new punter who starts hitting a full second longer than expected (over 4 second range), the punt returners have more time to see the opposing players approaching while they can just literally stand on the field waiting for the ball to come down from the sky. So it's changed from what they are used to: snatching the ball out of the air and running with it before anyone was near them. In theory.
When a ball doesn't take that long in the air, our punt returners only had to worry about catching it and then looking downfield for space to run.
With a longer hangtime, they have more decisions to make, but if the ball and the defenders arrive at the same time, our PRs looked like they don't know what to do. This is something GOOD for them to practice, I would assume. And if he can continue to get consistent in the high, long punts with significant hangtime, Grossnickle could potentially do to opposing punt returners what he does to our guys in practice: box them in, with nowhere to run.
 
Or maybe Riddle just said it better:

Brooks: Grossnickle Feeling More Comfortable, Confident

Riddle:
[FONT=Cambria, serif]"If you hit a line drive down there at 41 yards and the (returner) has got 10 yards between you and your nearest cover guy, it doesn't matter what you're doing . . . you're not going to be successful. We had that happen a lot (in 2009). We're really working hard on ball in the air, ball in the air, ball in the air."[/FONT]
 
Hearing about 4.4s hang time punts is awesome. If we give up 5 yards for a higher punt, but can get a fair catch nearly every time the ST momentum will swing our way for once. We've given up too many big returns over the past 4 years. How many PR were returned for TDs last year? UT and OSU I remember, but I think we had 1 or 2 more. I'm thinking NU and ISU, but I'm not sure.

A 4.4 hang time is certainly something we'll see in games too so that's good for our returners.
 
Hearing about 4.4s hang time punts is awesome. If we give up 5 yards for a higher punt, but can get a fair catch nearly every time the ST momentum will swing our way for once. We've given up too many big returns over the past 4 years. How many PR were returned for TDs last year? UT and OSU I remember, but I think we had 1 or 2 more. I'm thinking NU and ISU, but I'm not sure.

A 4.4 hang time is certainly something we'll see in games too so that's good for our returners.

The Fusker game basically came down to them getting that early PR TD from mid-field. Our defense was holding them fairly well, especially in that half, if that is a fair catch that game could very well have been a W. But, on the flip side, if our offense was working better we would not have been stuck inside the 20 yard line so much in the first place.
 
Special teams absolutely killed us against the Nubs. Scotty fair caught the punt at the 2 yard line. They had a PR touchdown. Their punter was booming them and pinning us deep with no returns. We missed field goals.

It's impossible to say we definitely would have won last year if we'd won the special teams battle, but I would have liked our chances.
 
I absolutely hope that we can use a guy like Quick, Orms et. al. back on PR and not expose Clemons or McKnight to gettting hammered time and again.

Staff told me they are very high on Duncan's playmaking ability so I won't be surprised if he get's a long look at both WR and PR in August.
 
I absolutely hope that we can use a guy like Quick, Orms et. al. back on PR and not expose Clemons or McKnight to gettting hammered time and again.

Staff told me they are very high on Duncan's playmaking ability so I won't be surprised if he get's a long look at both WR and PR in August.

Agreed I'd rather not see those guys get pounded unnecessarily, but the one thing I'd rather see less is a 3yard per return average.
 
I absolutely hope that we can use a guy like Quick, Orms et. al. back on PR and not expose Clemons or McKnight to gettting hammered time and again.

Staff told me they are very high on Duncan's playmaking ability so I won't be surprised if he get's a long look at both WR and PR in August.

If those guys can make plays back there, then awesome. However, I'd rather see one of our better athletes back there that can make something happen out of nothing. We took the play it safe strategy last year and rarely had a punt return longer then 10 yards. We definitely miss Josh on punt returns.
 
If those guys can make plays back there, then awesome. However, I'd rather see one of our better athletes back there that can make something happen out of nothing. We took the play it safe strategy last year and rarely had a punt return longer then 10 yards. We definitely miss Josh on punt returns.
i honestly don't remember any returns getting close to ten yards.
 
I could only spend about an hour watching practice today, so I'll tell you what my memory will allow.

1st of all, the way the coaches split up the players into smaller groups make it hard to pinpoint on any one or group of players.

What stood out most to me was the QB & WR drills. Hanson appeared to be as confident in his throws as CH but CH was a little more accurate. Simas was running crisp routes with Simmons and Clemmons. Clemmons seamed to be doing as well if not better than the others and drew some praise from Prince. But whenever any of the kids screwed up a route Prince didn't hold back on getting on them. The guy is very vocal.

Seth has a nice arm and touch on his passes, but from what I saw he dosn't step into his throws the way he should, but the coaches should be able to correct that. He could use a few extra pounds on that thin frame of his.

Denver Johnson has a drawl that makes him sound like he's from Georgia or somewhere in the deep south. Anyway, the guys on the O-line seam to respond well to his coaching techniques.

The short scrimmage in pads had CH & TH at QB. There were some missed blocking assignments but there were some good runs by Speedy who used his patened spin moves to break a few tackles. MTM went down on a running play and was slow to get up, but walked it off and seamed fine a short time later. I did not see any pass plays in the short scrimmage, all runs and FG's.

Speaking of FG's, Goodman missed wide right from about 30 yards away. I'm not convinced yet that he can improve much more. They need to give one of the other kids a look.

Next time I go, I'll pay closer attention to how the D is progressing. Hope this suffices until next time.
 
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Thanks, Hugegroove.

I love hearing that Simas is practicing. We really need him this year.
 
For those of you who plan to go, don't park behind either set of goal posts. I heard several thumps of footballs hitting cars on FG attempts.
 
I absolutely hope that we can use a guy like Quick, Orms et. al. back on PR and not expose Clemons or McKnight to gettting hammered time and again.

Staff told me they are very high on Duncan's playmaking ability so I won't be surprised if he get's a long look at both WR and PR in August.

I wasn't at practice today, but I was on Thursday. Fairly certain neither Quick or Parker was returning punts, but the ones who were practicing that didn't look spectacular, so maybe they are trying a lot of guys in the position. Both Q and P have some ability to return kicks and punts judging from high school, but that's all I have to go on.
 
For those of you who plan to go, don't park behind either set of goal posts. I heard several thumps of footballs hitting cars on FG attempts.

If history is any guide, behind the goalposts are the safest place to be if Goodman is kicking!:pissed:
 
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