Practice Report-Sunday August 7: DBacks be "pickin" on the Signal Callers

[ED: Thanks again EtOHReb, even though your title is goofy.]

As I'm sure you've read elsewhere (unless this is your first practice report, in which case you are to commended and at the same time questioned for your sanity), but the defensive backs came to play today, reeling in numerous interceptions to accompany plenty of other pass deflections.  It was a nice day for the veterans, especially Charles Sawyer and Damien Jackson, but the were not alone. The newcomers are making their fair share of plays and look to be fighting for some serious playing time.

There's no doubt that the athleticism of the safeties and cornerbacks are both miles and miles ahead of last year's unit.  You can call me out on this now, but I have a feeling that Marcus Temple is gonna get left behind this year. I can still see him contributing in a nickel role, but as the newcomers get more experience, he is gonna struggle to hang.  We finally have 3-5 cornerbacks with SEC speed and ability, even though hey lack the experience.  Below the jump, I'll give my view of the candidates...

First, there's Charles Sawyer.  I think Charles has the ability to be an above average to very good SEC cornerback.  I think he has legitimate NFL potential.  He played very well today, and the results were a couple of interceptions.  He may be a bit of a boom-bust type player, somewhat like Trumaine McBride was for us (though I think Charles will be better overall during his career).  With his experience, I expect him to cover the best receiver on the field during most games this year.

Next, I'd like to address Wesley Pendleton.  He's probably more comfortable out there than many of our freshmen. He also has very good speed.  He was, however, beaten deep two or three times today by freshman Nicholas Brassell. I think this is more a statement of Brassell's ability as opposed to Pendleton's. I think in the first half of the season, Pendleton will likely start and I am sure that he'll contribute throughout the year. I base this on my feeling that, as far as talent level goes, Pendleton's ceiling is much lower than several newcomers as well as that of Sawyer.  He's a short term fix while we address the situation long-term.

Cliff Coleman is our most physical corner.  He may or may not be fast enough to be a full-time starter in this league (honestly, I couldn't tell you one way or the other), but the guy competes.  I'd love to see him on the field for this reason alone.  He'll probably get some pass interference calls if he plays, but that's because he's going to fight to not give up the big play.  He's just so different from the 'touchdown or interception' corners we normally have that I really want to see this kid play some.

Now, my choice for "Defensive Back of the Day": Aaron Garbutt. First of all, let's talk about his body (Houston Nutt probably will discuss how beautiful he looks, how much his muscularity and fitness is delicious). He looks like a legit SEC player. Interestingly, he seemed to struggle with conditioning during drills, but that went away quickly. He's plenty big enough to help us, and he flied around throughout drills and the skeleton/scrimmage area.  He also had a be-YOU-tiful one handed interception after Ja-Mes Logan couldn't handle a slightly overthrown ball from Mackey.

I wondered at the end of practice why I really hadn't noticed Senquez Golson, but then I realized he hadn't seen much action. He was constantly matched up against Vincent Sanders, Ja-Mes Logan, or Tobias Singleton and honestly, they didn't really throw at him.  As we all know, a cornerback who doesn't have his name called is doing something right.  Don't be surprised to see him on the field this year, becuase he's an absurdly gifted athlete.

Nick Brassell managed to catch another interception today.  Granted, he was wearing the same jersey color as the offense (though he had on a ridiculous yellow cover on his helmet for distinguishing himself) which was likely confusing to most everybody there, but he outfought Terrell Grant for a short ball to get the pick. More on his offense in a bit.

Vincent Moss had an interception today. Under 75 percent of the years that we've played - or at least that I've watched - he would likely earn playing time. Think Marcus Temple vs. Florida in 2008. He's disciplined and decent, but there's no way he's higher than 6th or 7th at corner by the end of Fall camp.

Cody Prewitt is athletic enough to help, but he's not physically ready this year. I think he'll be a nice player in a year or so.

I like Frank Crawford. He draws the ire of the coaching staff for mental mistakes, but athletically he should be able to help us.

Lastly, I can see a great deal of improvement on the part of Damien Jackson with respect to playing the ball.  He catches the ball smoother than some of our wide-outs this year (not a compliment for the WRs), and I predict, if he plays as well as I expect, there's no possible way our defense isn't at least moderately improved from last year. He'll get drafted.

Staying on the topic of Defensive Backs, Keith Burns is awesome. At one point in a tackling drill, Justin Smith went against Wayne Dorsey, to which Burns yelled, "It's 2 babies in a playpen" to emphasize their lack of energy. Not five minutes later, he stared at the crowd and declared "Y'all ought to bring your cameras, phones...have it on me all the time, I don't mind...you'll make some money on Youtube." A bit later, while working on a sideline tackling drill, Burns yelled at the DBs, "the best tackler in football is your friend...Sideline Sam."  He clearly is less Rah-Rah than Dameron was last year (who I liked), but the players listen to him and respect him.  

D.T. Shackelford is not just attending practices, but influencing them.  During "pursuit", a conditioning drill for the defense, the first team struggled and D.T. immediately yelled at all of them. "Get this stuff right! Step it up!, Come on man!"

In stretching, Gilbert Pena replaced Byron Bennett. I could see this as a fluid situation throughout camp.

In the two minute drill (the one where the most top players were featured), Charles Sawyer played over Marcus Temple and Vincent Sanders played over Melvin Harris. Derrick Herman played in the slot (I question whether he will ever contribute significantly).

The quarterback play was clearly pretty rough, as evidenced by the numerous interceptions, however Barry Brunetti rebounded and was the best out there today.  He also got a significant portion of the snaps.  I think It's about 60 percent that he starts on opening day. He was much better on short throws and decision making today, but - fair warning - he's still quite inaccurate down the field. I'm not sure he'll ever be super accurate past 15 yards. Second, he is very much prone to checking down. I think that the coaches probably like this right now, especially with our running backs, but this could turn out to be very frustrating for our fan-base. Don't be surprised if we punt the ball a good bit or screen pass with the hopes of picking up first downs throughout the year. 

Basically, our mobile quarterbacks aren't as big armed as our statue of a quarterback.

Another new coach I'm loving is Gunter Brewer.  He looks at the players in the eyes. He talks to them and explains why they should do different things, and not simply what they should do.  He is a good one and I hope that the results show on the field. Interestingly, he was the coach that was in charge of all the returners, and it seems that the drops in special teams practice were significantly down from last year's exercises.

Because I arrived on time today, I saw punt return drills. We did a number of interesting things with this (having their back turned at the punt so they much find the punt quickly and also having them carry an extra ball in one arm and try to catch with the other arm). Five people returned punts in this order: Jeff Scott, Philander Moore, Ja-Mes Logan, Nicholas Brassell, and Korvic Neat.  I feel very good about Scott and Moore (both were confident and dropped absolutely zero catchable punts) and pretty good about both Logan and Brassell.  Neat was the only one dropping easy balls and probably won't get a ton more opportunities.

On the offensive side of the ball, I love our running backs.  I swear I'm not exaggerating when I say Jeff Scott is going to make us all smile and think of Dexter this year. Despite his size, he can run it up the middle because his cuts and quickness make everyone miss him. Brandon Bolden is going to be one of the first 3 running backs chosen in next year's draft. Enrique...shoot me for saying this....but Enrique is a very good back.  He would start for 4 or 5 SEC teams.  He'll end up in an NFL camp next year.

Our receiving corps were very hit and miss today, but you can see the bright spots. Two surprising freshmen really impressed me today: Collins Moore and TJ Worthy.  Worthy really showed that he will put his body out there to make a catch, even if it means getting beat up in the process. Moore caught some nice balls, mostly comebacks and seam routes, but even caught a curl in the scrimmage that almost earned a first down.

It seems as though Philander Moore, Brassell, and Tobias Singleton will all have a chance to be a deep threat this year. Singleton did a great job in skeletons of shielding a corner from a deep ball and Brassell beat several speedy corners deep (only caught one, but the others were bad throws).

The Two minute drills were run by Brunetti and Stoudt, neither of which were able to get points.  On the final drive, the defense's sideline was enthusiastically cheering "DE-FENSE" and Wayne Dorsey came through on 4th down with a huge strip-sack of Stoudt and then managed to run 10 yards and beat out everyone for the recovery.