FOOTBALL: Practice Report...
Posted By: Ma'ake
Date: Tuesday, 9 April 2002, at 6:53 p.m.
It was cool & windy and tried to rain a little today. A big Canadian Goose swooped over the field & landed in the north end zone of the south field and stayed there for the last half of practice. (OK, enough of this "setting" crap.)
It's looking more & more like Arnold has found a home at CB. Even at 6'2" and 210 lb he's the best cover guy, and showed it a couple of times, while Dave Revill SS #35 is a player they want to see on the field more.
Morgan Scalley WR #25 is now a RB, where he apparently played in HS. He looked OK at RB, I'm sure still getting used to the change. He got absolutely smoked in a blitz drill by the LB, the first time, but then came back and aquitted himself nicely in the next rep.
Al Johnson #65 DE is now a TE wearing #39 (at least today). He looked "OK", but showed some promise athletically.
Chris Kemoeatu got into *another* scuffle today. As ColoUte pointed out, Chris just doesn't look like he's in a very pleasant mood, most of the time.
But the best dustup - by far - was between Arnold Parker & Paris Jackson. They each did their best impression of Roy Jones Jr. and it went on for maybe 10-15 seconds before other players broke it up. I'm going to rate this one a tie, and they'd better not do it again - we need both these guys.
Stephen Thompson #5 LB "grossed out" the non-participating Marquess Ledbetter SO LB (will be #59) with a dislocated finger.
Not so gnarly, but a little scary, was Garrett Smith going down on a play. It looked like he got a helmet to the right thigh, and didn't seem to appreciate the gesture. He's OK.
Some notable performance today, including - but not limited to(I recently added that little legalistic phrase to my vocabulary *wink*) :
> J.R. Peroulis RB #2 - lookin' good, lookin' quick, busted a tackle or two.
> Elia Laeli DT #58 - Big hair, planted Peroulis on one play, showed real good quickness getting upfield on another. He's acting like he wants PT, IMO.
> Zach Tune LB #13 - I get the feeling that Zach just likes to hurt people. He gave Steven Savoy WR #15 a "welcome to D1 football" hit - it sounded like it would have sent me to the ICU for a week. (Savoy got right back up.) The biggest risk with this kid is having him get in the doghouse for injuring someone in practice.
Juan McNutt WR #8 looked *really* good in drills, looks like he wants to move up, but didn't get a rep in the psuedo-scrimmage. If he keeps putting out like he did in the drills, he'll move up. Like Savoy, he's got all the tools...
With the south gale (blowing garbage to the north at about 5 mph along the ground), the QBs didn't look as sharp as they have. For the first time I can remember, Eliott missed his receiver twice, and a sideline bomb thrown by Rice with the wind just kept going....
Overall, it was a workmanlike day at practice. Nothing too spectacular, just a piece in the puzzle of getting better.
I would write more, but I'm hungry. Later.
FOOTBALL: Some thoughts from practice......
Posted By: ColoUte
Date: Wednesday, 10 April 2002, at 9:37 a.m.
- We have some guys on this team with really pissy attitudes. Not pissy in the bad, prima-donna, whiner way. Pissy in the hate everybody, hate everything, don't you even think about coming across my middle kind of way. To quote Blues Travler, "I love no one, and I don't care who knows. Don't care if you're far away, don't give a damn if you're close."
- Zach Tune is the epitome of this attitude. Dude's just mean and there's no two ways about it. As Ma'ake stated below, he planted Steven Savoy about 3 feet below the turf, and then just stood over him for a while. I hope we have some offensive scout team members left after the first week of practice.
- Chris Kemoeatu is still pissed that the Deseret News printed Ma'ake's picture in a story about him last year, and he keeps taking it out on our 3 technique D-Linemen.
- Our DB's don't like receivers running by them, and the receivers don't much like being held. It makes for some tense moments at times.
- Brett Elliot had the two nicest passes of the day yesterday. He hit J.D. Jorgensen on a 30 yard post and made a beautiful blitz read to hit Brandon Bliss. Unfortunately, he also made the 3 worst passes of the day yesterday on some pretty bad reads under pressure. Elliot also had a really athletic scramble out of traffic. He's got some decent quicks.
- Rice looked solid, not overly spectacular. His passes were considerably more accurate yesterday. I'd actually say he looked the best of the three overall yesterday, but still misses the playmaking knack that Elliot has. He'll make fewer mistakes, though. Pick your poison I guess.
- Breska looked quite a bit better yesterday. His passes looked crisper and he looked a bit more comfortable. However, he's still pretty slow on the roll-outs and he tried to scramble yesterday and it was just ugly. A couple of his passes still look labored.
- I think Gehrke would make a GREAT professional wrestler.
FOOTBALL: Spring Practice Comments...
Posted By: UteNick
Date: Friday, 12 April 2002, at 1:26 p.m.
I've been reading this board a lot lately, but haven't been able to post beacause I'm one of those people who forgot my password.
I have some thoughts on Utah football as I've observed practice and talked to some of the players.
Depending on who you talk to, either the defense is dominating as usual, or the offense is improving over last year. From what I've seen both are true statements.
Our defense, as we've come to expect, is just plain mean. The D-line has got to be the best in the conference and one of the best in the west for certain. One of the reasons that Sheldon and Brookes look so good at LB is those guys up front take on two blocks each and that frees them up to be head hunters. The same is of course true for any great LB and he'll be the first to say he owes much to the D-Line.
Staying at LB, I'm surprised that Jer. Lyman has not been mentioned in the practice reports I've read so far. As soon as Sheldon is back healthy, Lyman will most likely move to MAC position and be one of the three starters. He was a starter for three plays last year when he blew his knee out vs. Indiana.
As far as the QB position is concerned, from what I've heard no one has stepped up to dethrone Lance as the starter. He works too damn hard at all that he does, and he's won the respect of his offense. When he's in the huddle, it's a different attitude. I'm just as nervous as anyone, in that everytime I watch Lance I just think of the Air Force game, but we may have to look past that to what he can bring to the table this year.
At RB I like what I see from Morgan, but I don't know if Mac will try another experiment with a smaller RB a la D'Shaun Crockett two years ago. He's done well throughout the years with the big bruisers, and I think he'll stick with that in MJ.
That's all I've got for now, but I'll be posting more now that I have a new password.
Go Utes, and come on August 31, get here already!
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