Practice Report-August 12th: Nutt's Got a Bone in his Pocket

A wishbone, to be more specific. As I was spending some time on the sideline during stretches today, David Lee was chatting with a fan on the (tossing a football and joking around) when the fan made a quip about coming onto the field during goal-line activities today. Lee quickly remarked, 'hey! watch our goal line today....wishbone!", and then trotted back to practice.  Later in the practice I found out that was no joke. It was a fun look at another way to get multiple backs on the field at once and potentially create a mismatch for our offense. I'm sure we could change out the backs but today we utilized H.R. Greer (who was back from injury) behind the quarterback and Bolden and Devin Thomas in the points of the "Y" (real technical terminology, huh?). While the use of this formation was the most notable, it was far from the only interesting development in today's practice.

As far as the lineups go with respect to streching, it was very similar to yesterday's lineup. Aaron Morris, who has been getting rave reviews for his play was still stretching with the third team as a tackle.  Sitting out today was Kentrell Lockett, allowing Gerald Rivers to move up to the first team.  Evan Ingram was also not dressed today. Mike Marry stayed with the second team and Ralph Williams was up front today (probably as a result of Marry's slight injury). Lastly, HR Greer stretched with the first team, moving Earnest Harmon to second team, while E.J. Epperson returned to stretch with the 3's.

Today's practice was a short one, and thankfully so as the heat returned in full force.  The players were in shells, but just shorts, probably to allow them to deal with the heat and recover from such a rough practice yesterday.  It could even be said that a large portion of today's practice was mental in nature. Part of that showed itself in the fact there was good bit of specialty situation work throughout the practice.  

The first situational work was with special teams, specifically working on kickoff coverage for the first time in camp. A number of players both young and old worked on the drills for coverage team members, but only two kickers practiced kickoffs: Andrew Ritter and David Hankins. Hankins actually got more leg on the ball, but he got fewer chances to kick on the ball. Ritter, as we all know, had trouble keeping the ball in bounds last year. Today he had no issues with control, but it seems as though he took something off the ball in order to maintain come accuracy. His kicks ended up landing somewhere between the 3-10 yard line each time, with one being a knuckler that bounced at the 15 but would have worked as it wasn't returnable.

Today's practice was no doubt a star studded event, as it was attended by both Billy Tapp AND J.D. Lawhorn.  Needless to say the players could hardly keep their attention on practice with such celebrities in attendance.

I got a chance to watch the linebackers today in run only drills versus the offensive line and backs. I particularly tried to watch the young players to gauge their effectiveness. They all have tremendous ability, though they all won't be equally effective this year. Serderius Bryant is so short, but he's thick and explosive. Unfortunately, he seems to be lost every now and then and is getting ridden hard by the coaching staff. The most ready to help looks to be Keith Lewis, who seems to fly to the ball and not get lost in the play. Obviously the one everyone wants to know about is C.J. Johnson. Here's the thing - I have no doubt he's gonna be a really really good linebacker, but I don't know how soon that will be.  He still has a tendency to overrun the ball, causing a susceptibility to the cutback. He also still seems to be hesitating in diagnosing the play. On the positive side, however, when he gets his momentum going and when he gets to the ball, he lays a big hit and he can wrap up. He did such in skeletons later in the practice on a catch for Jamal Mosley over the middle.....big big hit. All three of the freshman seem to be struggling getting off blocks, but I think this is probably one of the most difficult things to learn when stepping up to the SEC level of play.

Aaron Garbutt is going to help this team immediately. In terms of sheer athleticism and speed, he might be a small notch below Chief Brown, but he is miles ahead of Brown with respect to physicality, mental sharpness, and aggression. Chief might help on special teams this year, but Garbutt is going to play significant minutes for us at safety. He's physical, quick, and seems to find the ball no matter where it goes.

I witnessed Senquez Golson get beat badly deep for the first time today and it was by Melvin Harris, who reeled in the deep ball for a touchdown. Then again, as we're hearing later today, Golson got a big offer from the Red Sox, so it's understandable if his mind was elsewhere.

Other situational work today came on offense. It's hard for me to describe this work other than to say that most of the plays were of the "baiting" sort. What I mean by this is that these were almost all plays that are likely set up by other plays and are intended to put the defense in one mindset in order to catch them sleeping. While I'll try to keep the details to a minimum (so that the coaching staff doesn't throw too much of a temper tantrum), an example would be the touchdown play that Dexter threw to Shay Hodge against LSU two years ago.  Another play would be a seemingly short yardage lineup that draws the defense down and then allows Jamal Mosley to sneak behind the defense for a deep seam route.  One hint of a play run is to tell you that Brandon Bolden throws the 2nd nicest spiral of any player on our team. Seriously. We also practiced things like a Hail Mary.

Some of the staff were sporting t-shirts today with what I'm assuming is our motto for the year. The Front of the shirt says in bold letters "FREAK TIME SHOW TIME" & the back has the football schedule with the words "FREAK TIME SHOW". Make what you will of this.

Next the team did a good bit of work on goal line situations.  I mentioned the wishbone stuff earlier, but also of note was the defense we fielded in the goal line situations.  The first team contained 5 defensive linemen, including Bryon Bennett, Corey Gaines, and the two juco transfer D-Tackles. The formation also included 3 different safeties (though 2 of which were of the hybrid-linebacker persuasion) and 2-3 linebackers, depending on the offensive formation. It seemed like a very versatile group of players that could be effective under a number of circumstances.

Finally, practice ended with a scrimmage. It was a bit of a weird scrimmage as the offense constantly seemed dangerous, often springing for a huge play, yet they were not really able to find a rhythm. This is partially because of the occasional defensive sack or good coverage, but just as often was because of a fumble or an inability to get get the play right. Most impressive was Jeff Scott, who is proving every day that he is a true homerun threat. He has clearly worked on his hands and will be a threat both running and catching the ball. Brandon Bolden also outran the defense on one play and Zack Stoudt (who was still probably the third best QB today) connected with Ja-Mes  Logan for a deep ball on a busted coverage. Overall, Barry was probably the best quarterback today, but both he and Randall looked above average today and dangerous at times.

Practice finished with field goals, all of which Bryson Rose made. He has been taking these kicks over the past few days from around the 40 yard distance and has been completing them with ease. Field Goals look good for the year.

Lastly, I'd like to thank all of the high standard eye-candy that has attended practice over the past few days. If you guys are responsible for bringing your girlfriends or wives (or hell, your daughters that are over 18), you should know that I've personally been impressed with the quality and quantity over the past few days. You've definitely made the druthers of watching Brishen Matthews practice catching the ball (Please don't make me watch him drop another ball thrown into his numbers again!) much less painful.