Attended yesterday's practice. High Winds forced them inside after a bit. The film crew on the towers were swaying pretty good!
We went inside the bubble and I will say this: I for one am damn appreciative that we are allowed into practices. They were running their drills all over the place and I wandered a bit (I was sure to stay well out of the way) on the sideline and really got to see some good up-close and personal action. I was probably breaking a rule or two, but no one said anything. I was standing next to about 5 recruits (no idea who they were - one kid from Chatfield). At one point Todd Ritter (Assistant Director of Football Operations/On-Campus Recruitin) came up and introduced himself. He thought I might have been a Dad. I told him I was just a fan/supporter. He said we need more of those and after a bit walked away after a Go Buffs. I was literally 20 feet from Hagan who was running the RB's thru some drills. I saw similiar up-close action with Bandison, Johnson, Riddle, Kiesau, Prince and Cabral in terms of being able to see and hear what was going on. They did a lot of drills mixed in with short scrimmaging and then back to drills and so forth. Ran a lot of passing 7 on 7 live action without the Linemen.
I don't think there's many programs that open up their practices like this. For that, I'm grateful.
Things I noticed:
Q.Hildreth is getting a lot of work and making plays.
B.Lock ditto above.
Speedy seems to have sustained a hand injury. He saw much less action.
Hirschman is poised. He hit Mario Conte on a deep pass in scrimmage. Prince went nuts for Mario.
Cody hit Cefalo coming across the middle who took it to the house. I know people are sick and tired of short, slow walk-on WR's, but this kid is a baller. Think Scotty McKnight. He will see the field.
WillJeff took a shot and I don't know the seriousness. He was down for awhile and then I didn't see him again. Simas pulled up lame - appeared to be a Hamstring. No sign of Simmons still.
OL - I think there's good progress from the scrimmage I saw earlier. I guess we'll see. There's a lot of big boys out there. Solder is an absolute specimen. Unreal. I didn't see Bryce Givens but I didn't look to hard. There's a lot of big bodies to roll in there. Tau is huge and not as fat as I expected. It will be interesting to see if MTM or Tau can get in the mix.
Orms making plays like crazy. For all the too short, too slow guys out there, he is the poster child. The guy is everywhere. On a read-option play that went to Speedy, it looked perfectly blocked and like a big gainer. Some guy comes out of nowhere and meets Speedy at about the LOS and no gain. Number 30. Get used to that one. Mark Johnson was next to me and we both were impressed.
I expect our running game will rely a lot on short passes that require the WR's to hold their blocks on the DB to allow the other WR to make YAC.
Thornton had a big time catch. Deehan made several nice catches including a seam pass right down the gut for a big gain. Clark Evans dropped a pass. Deehan stood out in everything they were doing.
Grossnickle was rugby-punting in the bubble with VERY good results. Saw a few bad snaps at the end - may have been 2nd or 3rd team by then.
Watched the QBs a lot in passing drills. They all made some plays and all had some bad ones. Tyler still stands out to me as the most well-equipped. He ran every drill first and every time they scrimmaged, he went first. Lobato did some work at WR, mostly at QB. He is taller and has more arm perhaps than any. I will say that with good protection, Cody finds the open man. I still believe Tyler has the edge and a higher upside. I was an early adopter on this one, having family ties in Temecula. Tyler had a scramble play where he left the pocket, rolled out left and hit a WR in the endzone PERFECTLY. All in all, the offense is making progress on the defense. All meaningless until we play another team, but there is progress out there.
In the 7-vs-7, the young guys on Defense were getting a lot of "input" from Collins. There's a lot of learning ahead still for Webb, Rippy, etc. They are both athletic and fast. Jalil Brown was making plays big time. He can be REAL good. Polk is a specimen. Sandersfield was in uniform - not sure of his participation level. Jaffee is a good player that we don't talk about. He had a nice pick.
Will Jeff took a little hitch pass for a nice YAC pickup but paid the price when BJ Beatty flattened him. Hope he is ok.
#83 made an ESPN highlight catch. Hawk yelled at him "nice catch Dusty"! I assumed it was a reference to Dusty Sprague, our former #83 who was similiar build and good hands. Looking it up, this was Dustin Ebner. The former #83 was a bit taller...
Again - felt fortunate to wander the bubble and observe like I did. Husker fans would pay $5k for that 2 hours I believe.
We went inside the bubble and I will say this: I for one am damn appreciative that we are allowed into practices. They were running their drills all over the place and I wandered a bit (I was sure to stay well out of the way) on the sideline and really got to see some good up-close and personal action. I was probably breaking a rule or two, but no one said anything. I was standing next to about 5 recruits (no idea who they were - one kid from Chatfield). At one point Todd Ritter (Assistant Director of Football Operations/On-Campus Recruitin) came up and introduced himself. He thought I might have been a Dad. I told him I was just a fan/supporter. He said we need more of those and after a bit walked away after a Go Buffs. I was literally 20 feet from Hagan who was running the RB's thru some drills. I saw similiar up-close action with Bandison, Johnson, Riddle, Kiesau, Prince and Cabral in terms of being able to see and hear what was going on. They did a lot of drills mixed in with short scrimmaging and then back to drills and so forth. Ran a lot of passing 7 on 7 live action without the Linemen.
I don't think there's many programs that open up their practices like this. For that, I'm grateful.
Things I noticed:
Q.Hildreth is getting a lot of work and making plays.
B.Lock ditto above.
Speedy seems to have sustained a hand injury. He saw much less action.
Hirschman is poised. He hit Mario Conte on a deep pass in scrimmage. Prince went nuts for Mario.
Cody hit Cefalo coming across the middle who took it to the house. I know people are sick and tired of short, slow walk-on WR's, but this kid is a baller. Think Scotty McKnight. He will see the field.
WillJeff took a shot and I don't know the seriousness. He was down for awhile and then I didn't see him again. Simas pulled up lame - appeared to be a Hamstring. No sign of Simmons still.
OL - I think there's good progress from the scrimmage I saw earlier. I guess we'll see. There's a lot of big boys out there. Solder is an absolute specimen. Unreal. I didn't see Bryce Givens but I didn't look to hard. There's a lot of big bodies to roll in there. Tau is huge and not as fat as I expected. It will be interesting to see if MTM or Tau can get in the mix.
Orms making plays like crazy. For all the too short, too slow guys out there, he is the poster child. The guy is everywhere. On a read-option play that went to Speedy, it looked perfectly blocked and like a big gainer. Some guy comes out of nowhere and meets Speedy at about the LOS and no gain. Number 30. Get used to that one. Mark Johnson was next to me and we both were impressed.
I expect our running game will rely a lot on short passes that require the WR's to hold their blocks on the DB to allow the other WR to make YAC.
Thornton had a big time catch. Deehan made several nice catches including a seam pass right down the gut for a big gain. Clark Evans dropped a pass. Deehan stood out in everything they were doing.
Grossnickle was rugby-punting in the bubble with VERY good results. Saw a few bad snaps at the end - may have been 2nd or 3rd team by then.
Watched the QBs a lot in passing drills. They all made some plays and all had some bad ones. Tyler still stands out to me as the most well-equipped. He ran every drill first and every time they scrimmaged, he went first. Lobato did some work at WR, mostly at QB. He is taller and has more arm perhaps than any. I will say that with good protection, Cody finds the open man. I still believe Tyler has the edge and a higher upside. I was an early adopter on this one, having family ties in Temecula. Tyler had a scramble play where he left the pocket, rolled out left and hit a WR in the endzone PERFECTLY. All in all, the offense is making progress on the defense. All meaningless until we play another team, but there is progress out there.
In the 7-vs-7, the young guys on Defense were getting a lot of "input" from Collins. There's a lot of learning ahead still for Webb, Rippy, etc. They are both athletic and fast. Jalil Brown was making plays big time. He can be REAL good. Polk is a specimen. Sandersfield was in uniform - not sure of his participation level. Jaffee is a good player that we don't talk about. He had a nice pick.
Will Jeff took a little hitch pass for a nice YAC pickup but paid the price when BJ Beatty flattened him. Hope he is ok.
#83 made an ESPN highlight catch. Hawk yelled at him "nice catch Dusty"! I assumed it was a reference to Dusty Sprague, our former #83 who was similiar build and good hands. Looking it up, this was Dustin Ebner. The former #83 was a bit taller...
Again - felt fortunate to wander the bubble and observe like I did. Husker fans would pay $5k for that 2 hours I believe.
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