First of all, my family sucks. Both Nikita and Nik Jr. decided that they had no interest in standing around for 3 hours in the sun watching a football practice. Where did I go wrong? I have clearly failed as a husband and a father. Depressing.
Especially since the day started out so well. Last night they had said they weren't sure if they were going, but then they decided to come. We all got in the car and drove to Village Coffee Shop. Nothing like VCS to start a football Saturday. Even better - they had a special this morning.
Chorizo, eggs and onions in a burrito with Hatch green chili gravy on top and their killer hash browns on the side - how allsome is that? Tall glass of iced coffee to go with it. Life was good. Damn good.
To make matters even better, Nik Jr couldn't eat all of his pancakes so I got to hit some of his short stack on top of this. But it was a total setup. They were just softening me up and waiting until I was into a blissful food coma before letting me know that they were just going to drop me off at practice and head home. **** 'em. Not like I would have talked to them anyway with practice going on.
The practice itself was gorgeous weather. Maybe too nice. No shade to be found. I'm pretty sure I sunburned the top of my feet and will have a total flip flop farmer tan once they stop peeling and I end up with some color. At least I don't wear Crocs.
As far as the practice itself, somewhat frustrating that we only get to see 2 of them and today wasn't even a full pads day. Shorts and shells. Can't really tell a lot from that except for who looks good and who seems to know what he's doing at this stage of camp.
Here's a quick rundown of what stood out to me:
QB - Montez looked great. Much more command, better footwork and seems to have learned to only throw the ball as hard as he needs to in order to make the play. Noyer vs Lytle is a good battle for #2. Neither looks ready to challenge Montez in any way, but both look like they can play. Noyer's still got happy feet in the pocket but seems ahead of Lytle on having turned that corner with the confidence to cut loose and not worry so much about making a mistake. Lytle is very accurate and throws a very catchable ball. Stenstrom is a well put together freshman who has better arm talent than I expected. He's behind the others right now and likely for this year.
RB - Evans looks better than he did pre-injury. We should feel good about the contribution he will make this year and right now he's the #1. McMillian is still learning his assignments and steps, but when he gets it down he's a 1,000 yard feature back. Impressive size. Smooth runner with great lean who makes clean, subtle cuts while moving north-south. Very natural looking glider who is a load. But, he also has some moments where he's lost - had a play where he did a play action fake wrong and ran into Montez's back. Once that stuff gets cleaned up, I think he's the guy. Donovan Lee is an athlete who can do a lot, including work from the slot. Nice change of pace. Fontenot has wheels. Could bust some big runs this year. Deion Smith is an impressive recruit. So quick, but needs to gain strength.
TE - Bounds is solid in everything he does. Technician. Everything is clean in every drill. Poplawski also looking really good and is a lot bigger than last year. Moving very well and no hint of injury with the way he moves. Darrion Jones is massive and will be a player. Not sure if he redshirts this year because there's so much football he's got to learn, but he has all the physical gifts to be good and he works hard out there. Brady Russell is a good candidate to earn one of those open scholarships. Was our Offensive Scout POY last season and is going to provide nice depth at the position. Kind of in the Bounds mold.
WR - Strength of the team. Viska is a guy you have to see in person. Looks like an OLB or WDE but he's still fast. I promise this will be the only time I talk about calves, but holy ****. That dude is built better than most NFL WRs as a damn sophomore. Winfree built similarly, but not as thick. Winfree's hands are massive, though. Ento has gotten thicker. He looks more like a pole vaulter than a high jumper now with some upper body mass on his frame. KD's a fire plug. MacIntyre looks like he got slimmer & quicker. Brown put the work in and looks good. Mo Bell is impressive. Jackson is fast, but has some catching up to do to shake the rust off (he was making plays, though). Stanley is an athlete. Most impressive young guy to me was Arias. He's got the potential to be special. Tall and has some moves in the open field once he catches a slant. Buffs are stacked at WR, guys.
OL - the 1s today were Kaiser-Tonz-Pursell-Lynott-Haigler. 2s on the left side where we have our position battles were Shutack (potential scholarship candidate) and Sherman. Fillip was getting run with the 2s at RT and looks like he will be good but that it would be nice if we could redshirt him this year. Kaiser looks a lot bigger than last year and seems serviceable. Tonz vs Sherman should be a battle for the starting spot. Sherman is an impressive bender and athlete. Wouldn't surprise me if they used him as a flex this year, getting him some split reps at LG while being our backup at RT so that Fillip can redshirt. Moretti was limited today and running with the 3s, so they're definitely being careful with him. Open question on whether he'll be able to take Kaiser's job by the end of camp. At C, Pursell looks like a monster and has that athletic high butt I always look for. Not sure about the depth at C, but Pursell is gonna be a player. Lynott looks like Lynott, so no worries there. And the best news is that Haigler made huge strides. He looks like an OT (finally) instead of like an oversized TE. The right side of the OL is very solid. Got some questions on the left and some questions on depth, but 3 days into camp it's about halfway to being a good P5 OL.
DL - First off, the youth is impressive. Lang stands out. Antwine is already the most physically put together guy out there. Finau made me do a double take because I was expecting an undersized developmental guy. He's bigger than Franke right now. With the starters, Mulumba looks more like a DT now and Javier is in shape. Last year, for example, he could barely do a push-up but he was pumping them out today and also staying active and energetic throughout drills. Johnson was a very nice pickup. Right now, I'm not sure I'd bank on us having a good DL simply because there's so much improvement necessary from last season to reach "good". But there's more talent, a lot more experience from the starters and a lot of exciting young depth. Also, we have some veteran depth from guys like Franke and Tui who can give some dependable game reps in the rotation.
ILB - Not much to say about Gamboa and Lewis. We all know what we have with those guys. If the DL holds its gaps, they'll make a lot of plays and be very good starters. The depth is the real question here. Landman is a stud and it's gonna be hard to keep him off the field. Maybe a rotation with him and Gamboa like we saw in 2016 with Gamboa and Gillam is in the cards? Akil Jones is like a new man. Very nice to see. And JVD is starting to show why he was a 4* recruit now that he is healthy. Shot the gap on some run plays and exploded through to the RB for some beautiful stops. This has the potential to be a very good and deep unit this year.
OLB / Buff - Taylor and Tchangam look the part. Taylor's a next level athlete whose upside is as high as it gets. Tchangam plays downhill and I saw him close down on a nice run stop today. Callier has slimmed down and now looks like an OLB instead of a tweener. Wells looks like he's going to be a good pass rusher. Falo is big and still looks more like an ILB to me, but he's moving around well. This position is one of our bigger question marks after such a tough 2016. Lots of potential, though, and some depth.
CB - Miller's gonna be a beast. Long, athletic, physical enough, loose hips and great burst. Abrams reminds me of Spoon in 2015 and we need him to develop into 2016 Spoon by the end of camp. Got all the tools and freakishly long arms to go with it. Udoffia looked good today and Wigley too. George was back at CB instead of S and had a nice blitz off the edge. We'll see if he has the hips to develop into a CB, though. Blackmon is impressive to me as a nickel corner to cover a slot receiver. He could shoot up the depth chart, but it's kind of matchup dependent. I didn't really notice the true frosh here.
S - Worthington and Fisher is one of the best duos in the conference, so the concern here is depth. Maddox is quick twitch and I liked what I saw. Trego is dependable and would be solid if inserted, but I think he's more of a depth piece and special teams star. Robinson was doing some work with Taylor at Buff, where I think he'll eventually fit. Hypolite is the guy who really opened my eyes, though. Does not look like a freshman. Looks like he came straight from central casting to fill the strong safety role. I think he plays this year. Cooper's another walk-on who could earn a scholarship.
Special Teams - they were far away and I couldn't see much. Looked like MacIntyre was the main guy returning punts along with Blackmon. However things shake out with STs, we're in very good shape. Should be one of the strengths of the team.
Coaches - Chev seemed to have a very confident vision on what he wants to do and how play designs are supposed to be executed. It appeared that we're going to go even faster this year with much more rhythm from play to play. If we're getting 1st downs, teams are gonna gas. Roper was very dialed in on coaching up Montez, especially, but all of the QBs. I was impressed - professional coach. Got his coaching in on the side without disrupting Chev's flow & pace of practice or talking when he was talking. Brown is the man on defense and let's hope we can keep him for a while. Vocal and knows his ****. Needed because Eliot seems better 1-on-1 and with scheme than with the rah-rah stuff. We need other coaches to bring up the rah-rah energy and Brown does it. So do Ambrose and Drake. Drake's total energy out there, which I think will go a long way to getting our DLs playing with a different demeanor. It feels like MacIntyre has a lot of confidence in his staff this year because he wasn't dominating practice at all. He was letting players play and coaches coach, stepping in on specific things like to teach Fisher on a technique he picked up on. Stuff like that where he's overseeing and then fixing, teaching or refining when something isn't quite where it should be.
Conclusion: Everyone on our schedule sucks and we will crush them.
Edit: it may have been Vaughn I saw at RT but I’m almost positive the jersey # matched Fillip.
Especially since the day started out so well. Last night they had said they weren't sure if they were going, but then they decided to come. We all got in the car and drove to Village Coffee Shop. Nothing like VCS to start a football Saturday. Even better - they had a special this morning.
Chorizo, eggs and onions in a burrito with Hatch green chili gravy on top and their killer hash browns on the side - how allsome is that? Tall glass of iced coffee to go with it. Life was good. Damn good.
To make matters even better, Nik Jr couldn't eat all of his pancakes so I got to hit some of his short stack on top of this. But it was a total setup. They were just softening me up and waiting until I was into a blissful food coma before letting me know that they were just going to drop me off at practice and head home. **** 'em. Not like I would have talked to them anyway with practice going on.
The practice itself was gorgeous weather. Maybe too nice. No shade to be found. I'm pretty sure I sunburned the top of my feet and will have a total flip flop farmer tan once they stop peeling and I end up with some color. At least I don't wear Crocs.
As far as the practice itself, somewhat frustrating that we only get to see 2 of them and today wasn't even a full pads day. Shorts and shells. Can't really tell a lot from that except for who looks good and who seems to know what he's doing at this stage of camp.
Here's a quick rundown of what stood out to me:
QB - Montez looked great. Much more command, better footwork and seems to have learned to only throw the ball as hard as he needs to in order to make the play. Noyer vs Lytle is a good battle for #2. Neither looks ready to challenge Montez in any way, but both look like they can play. Noyer's still got happy feet in the pocket but seems ahead of Lytle on having turned that corner with the confidence to cut loose and not worry so much about making a mistake. Lytle is very accurate and throws a very catchable ball. Stenstrom is a well put together freshman who has better arm talent than I expected. He's behind the others right now and likely for this year.
RB - Evans looks better than he did pre-injury. We should feel good about the contribution he will make this year and right now he's the #1. McMillian is still learning his assignments and steps, but when he gets it down he's a 1,000 yard feature back. Impressive size. Smooth runner with great lean who makes clean, subtle cuts while moving north-south. Very natural looking glider who is a load. But, he also has some moments where he's lost - had a play where he did a play action fake wrong and ran into Montez's back. Once that stuff gets cleaned up, I think he's the guy. Donovan Lee is an athlete who can do a lot, including work from the slot. Nice change of pace. Fontenot has wheels. Could bust some big runs this year. Deion Smith is an impressive recruit. So quick, but needs to gain strength.
TE - Bounds is solid in everything he does. Technician. Everything is clean in every drill. Poplawski also looking really good and is a lot bigger than last year. Moving very well and no hint of injury with the way he moves. Darrion Jones is massive and will be a player. Not sure if he redshirts this year because there's so much football he's got to learn, but he has all the physical gifts to be good and he works hard out there. Brady Russell is a good candidate to earn one of those open scholarships. Was our Offensive Scout POY last season and is going to provide nice depth at the position. Kind of in the Bounds mold.
WR - Strength of the team. Viska is a guy you have to see in person. Looks like an OLB or WDE but he's still fast. I promise this will be the only time I talk about calves, but holy ****. That dude is built better than most NFL WRs as a damn sophomore. Winfree built similarly, but not as thick. Winfree's hands are massive, though. Ento has gotten thicker. He looks more like a pole vaulter than a high jumper now with some upper body mass on his frame. KD's a fire plug. MacIntyre looks like he got slimmer & quicker. Brown put the work in and looks good. Mo Bell is impressive. Jackson is fast, but has some catching up to do to shake the rust off (he was making plays, though). Stanley is an athlete. Most impressive young guy to me was Arias. He's got the potential to be special. Tall and has some moves in the open field once he catches a slant. Buffs are stacked at WR, guys.
OL - the 1s today were Kaiser-Tonz-Pursell-Lynott-Haigler. 2s on the left side where we have our position battles were Shutack (potential scholarship candidate) and Sherman. Fillip was getting run with the 2s at RT and looks like he will be good but that it would be nice if we could redshirt him this year. Kaiser looks a lot bigger than last year and seems serviceable. Tonz vs Sherman should be a battle for the starting spot. Sherman is an impressive bender and athlete. Wouldn't surprise me if they used him as a flex this year, getting him some split reps at LG while being our backup at RT so that Fillip can redshirt. Moretti was limited today and running with the 3s, so they're definitely being careful with him. Open question on whether he'll be able to take Kaiser's job by the end of camp. At C, Pursell looks like a monster and has that athletic high butt I always look for. Not sure about the depth at C, but Pursell is gonna be a player. Lynott looks like Lynott, so no worries there. And the best news is that Haigler made huge strides. He looks like an OT (finally) instead of like an oversized TE. The right side of the OL is very solid. Got some questions on the left and some questions on depth, but 3 days into camp it's about halfway to being a good P5 OL.
DL - First off, the youth is impressive. Lang stands out. Antwine is already the most physically put together guy out there. Finau made me do a double take because I was expecting an undersized developmental guy. He's bigger than Franke right now. With the starters, Mulumba looks more like a DT now and Javier is in shape. Last year, for example, he could barely do a push-up but he was pumping them out today and also staying active and energetic throughout drills. Johnson was a very nice pickup. Right now, I'm not sure I'd bank on us having a good DL simply because there's so much improvement necessary from last season to reach "good". But there's more talent, a lot more experience from the starters and a lot of exciting young depth. Also, we have some veteran depth from guys like Franke and Tui who can give some dependable game reps in the rotation.
ILB - Not much to say about Gamboa and Lewis. We all know what we have with those guys. If the DL holds its gaps, they'll make a lot of plays and be very good starters. The depth is the real question here. Landman is a stud and it's gonna be hard to keep him off the field. Maybe a rotation with him and Gamboa like we saw in 2016 with Gamboa and Gillam is in the cards? Akil Jones is like a new man. Very nice to see. And JVD is starting to show why he was a 4* recruit now that he is healthy. Shot the gap on some run plays and exploded through to the RB for some beautiful stops. This has the potential to be a very good and deep unit this year.
OLB / Buff - Taylor and Tchangam look the part. Taylor's a next level athlete whose upside is as high as it gets. Tchangam plays downhill and I saw him close down on a nice run stop today. Callier has slimmed down and now looks like an OLB instead of a tweener. Wells looks like he's going to be a good pass rusher. Falo is big and still looks more like an ILB to me, but he's moving around well. This position is one of our bigger question marks after such a tough 2016. Lots of potential, though, and some depth.
CB - Miller's gonna be a beast. Long, athletic, physical enough, loose hips and great burst. Abrams reminds me of Spoon in 2015 and we need him to develop into 2016 Spoon by the end of camp. Got all the tools and freakishly long arms to go with it. Udoffia looked good today and Wigley too. George was back at CB instead of S and had a nice blitz off the edge. We'll see if he has the hips to develop into a CB, though. Blackmon is impressive to me as a nickel corner to cover a slot receiver. He could shoot up the depth chart, but it's kind of matchup dependent. I didn't really notice the true frosh here.
S - Worthington and Fisher is one of the best duos in the conference, so the concern here is depth. Maddox is quick twitch and I liked what I saw. Trego is dependable and would be solid if inserted, but I think he's more of a depth piece and special teams star. Robinson was doing some work with Taylor at Buff, where I think he'll eventually fit. Hypolite is the guy who really opened my eyes, though. Does not look like a freshman. Looks like he came straight from central casting to fill the strong safety role. I think he plays this year. Cooper's another walk-on who could earn a scholarship.
Special Teams - they were far away and I couldn't see much. Looked like MacIntyre was the main guy returning punts along with Blackmon. However things shake out with STs, we're in very good shape. Should be one of the strengths of the team.
Coaches - Chev seemed to have a very confident vision on what he wants to do and how play designs are supposed to be executed. It appeared that we're going to go even faster this year with much more rhythm from play to play. If we're getting 1st downs, teams are gonna gas. Roper was very dialed in on coaching up Montez, especially, but all of the QBs. I was impressed - professional coach. Got his coaching in on the side without disrupting Chev's flow & pace of practice or talking when he was talking. Brown is the man on defense and let's hope we can keep him for a while. Vocal and knows his ****. Needed because Eliot seems better 1-on-1 and with scheme than with the rah-rah stuff. We need other coaches to bring up the rah-rah energy and Brown does it. So do Ambrose and Drake. Drake's total energy out there, which I think will go a long way to getting our DLs playing with a different demeanor. It feels like MacIntyre has a lot of confidence in his staff this year because he wasn't dominating practice at all. He was letting players play and coaches coach, stepping in on specific things like to teach Fisher on a technique he picked up on. Stuff like that where he's overseeing and then fixing, teaching or refining when something isn't quite where it should be.
Conclusion: Everyone on our schedule sucks and we will crush them.
Edit: it may have been Vaughn I saw at RT but I’m almost positive the jersey # matched Fillip.
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