Just got back from spring practice tonight - Numero Ocho according to the Twitter - on a beautiful night here in Happy Valley.
Pretty much same deal as last week. Really not much of substance in what we were able to see at practice.
That said, I'll give you a lineup that was on the field when we first got there.
QB - Tommy Stevens
RB - Andre Robinson
WR - Dae'Lun Darien
WR - Isaac Lutz
WR - Irvin Charles
TE - Jonathan Holland
RT - Alex Gellerstedt
RG - Charlie Shuman
C - Hunter Kelly
RG - Mike Miranda
RT - Sterling Jenkins
Like last week, I just don't think it's worth paying much attention to lineups while they're doing so much experimenting. Instead, I think the individuals are what I'm getting the most from during these brief glimpses.
Which is to say, Darien caught a touchdown pass on an inside slant. Looked good. Robinson took a draw maybe 14 yards for a touchdown in red zone work.
Once Jake Zembiec took the helm in goal line work, a lot of it was clearly instructional. That group struggled a little bit. One ball got batted down at the line, and then a second was a bad snap that nearly went over Zembiec's head.
And by my count, that was literally it. They moved on to punting and field goal kicking.
Punt return had DeAndre Thompkins, Josh McPhearson, Lamont Wade, Mark Allen, and KJ Hamler. Again, I did not see Hamler catch a punt or move with any type of jog or run.
Then they huddled, broke it down, and it was on to a brief James Franklin group Q&A for about 15 minutes with the media, as well as interviews with Ryan Bates and Jason Cabinda.
Tim just had a Jason Cabinda feature, so I stuck to Ryan Bates. Bates wasn't overly forthcoming, but he had some nice things to say about Mike Miranda, Connor McGovern (who he called a leader already), and others. He also said he has been exclusively at left tackle this spring.
OK - Franklin's press conference video is posted here.
Let's unpack it a little bit. He started right off the bat answering a question about position battles and how things were working out this spring, and he immediately went to the reality of this session and how missing bodies have impacted those situations.
"I think things are starting to sort themselves out at certain positions. But I think the other thing is, we do have some moving parts right now with a guy who is missing a practice here or there or is limited in a practice here or there, so you’ve got guys moving around," he said.
Then later, this:
"We do have more guys missing practice than I would like in general, and that’s not just this spring, just in general, but overall I’ve been pleased," he said. "Again, we’re talking about a guy with a hamstring out, those types of things. It’s not anything that I see as a problem, just as coaches you always want to get as many reps and as many opportunities as you can with the guys."
So, whether big or small, I don't think I'm out of line in suggesting that James saying what he said right off the bat is a symptom of some injuries this spring. So, maybe not necessarily "a problem" but something that creates frustrations when you're not dealing with the full deck of cards but want to simulate what you're going to have in the season ahead. Obviously, he doesn't get into specifics for specific players, but I think in just a general sense, this is a story line that is existing this spring for this program.
Naturally, that kind of led into Franklin talking about what he had touched on last week and at his pre-spring press conference, but really delved into further this afternoon. Which is to say, their approach has been largely about just absolutely swamping the younger, inexperienced guys with reps.
"Spring is a great time to kind of figure out who the other guys are. We need to find out who Miranda is, we need to find out who Lamont Wade is, we need to find out who Will Fries is, guys that, we’ve had an opportunity to see them but not really take in 45 reps during practice," said Franklin. "Are they going to be able to sustain it for the length of the practice? There’s a number of guys like that who are getting a bunch more opportunities right now because there’s guys that are established. Jason Cabinda? We pretty much know who he is. That doesn’t mean that he still doesn’t have areas that he needs to get better and still needs to work on, but there’s other guys that we have more pressing needs to figure out who they are."
And so in the process, they have a situation where they're confident with the overall numbers that they have - calling the program two deep in many cases and even three deep in others. But, they're not at a stage where they're even coming close to making decisions. Those will come in preseason.
We'll leave it at that for the night.
Pretty much same deal as last week. Really not much of substance in what we were able to see at practice.
That said, I'll give you a lineup that was on the field when we first got there.
QB - Tommy Stevens
RB - Andre Robinson
WR - Dae'Lun Darien
WR - Isaac Lutz
WR - Irvin Charles
TE - Jonathan Holland
RT - Alex Gellerstedt
RG - Charlie Shuman
C - Hunter Kelly
RG - Mike Miranda
RT - Sterling Jenkins
Like last week, I just don't think it's worth paying much attention to lineups while they're doing so much experimenting. Instead, I think the individuals are what I'm getting the most from during these brief glimpses.
Which is to say, Darien caught a touchdown pass on an inside slant. Looked good. Robinson took a draw maybe 14 yards for a touchdown in red zone work.
Once Jake Zembiec took the helm in goal line work, a lot of it was clearly instructional. That group struggled a little bit. One ball got batted down at the line, and then a second was a bad snap that nearly went over Zembiec's head.
And by my count, that was literally it. They moved on to punting and field goal kicking.
Punt return had DeAndre Thompkins, Josh McPhearson, Lamont Wade, Mark Allen, and KJ Hamler. Again, I did not see Hamler catch a punt or move with any type of jog or run.
Then they huddled, broke it down, and it was on to a brief James Franklin group Q&A for about 15 minutes with the media, as well as interviews with Ryan Bates and Jason Cabinda.
Tim just had a Jason Cabinda feature, so I stuck to Ryan Bates. Bates wasn't overly forthcoming, but he had some nice things to say about Mike Miranda, Connor McGovern (who he called a leader already), and others. He also said he has been exclusively at left tackle this spring.
OK - Franklin's press conference video is posted here.
Let's unpack it a little bit. He started right off the bat answering a question about position battles and how things were working out this spring, and he immediately went to the reality of this session and how missing bodies have impacted those situations.
"I think things are starting to sort themselves out at certain positions. But I think the other thing is, we do have some moving parts right now with a guy who is missing a practice here or there or is limited in a practice here or there, so you’ve got guys moving around," he said.
Then later, this:
"We do have more guys missing practice than I would like in general, and that’s not just this spring, just in general, but overall I’ve been pleased," he said. "Again, we’re talking about a guy with a hamstring out, those types of things. It’s not anything that I see as a problem, just as coaches you always want to get as many reps and as many opportunities as you can with the guys."
So, whether big or small, I don't think I'm out of line in suggesting that James saying what he said right off the bat is a symptom of some injuries this spring. So, maybe not necessarily "a problem" but something that creates frustrations when you're not dealing with the full deck of cards but want to simulate what you're going to have in the season ahead. Obviously, he doesn't get into specifics for specific players, but I think in just a general sense, this is a story line that is existing this spring for this program.
Naturally, that kind of led into Franklin talking about what he had touched on last week and at his pre-spring press conference, but really delved into further this afternoon. Which is to say, their approach has been largely about just absolutely swamping the younger, inexperienced guys with reps.
"Spring is a great time to kind of figure out who the other guys are. We need to find out who Miranda is, we need to find out who Lamont Wade is, we need to find out who Will Fries is, guys that, we’ve had an opportunity to see them but not really take in 45 reps during practice," said Franklin. "Are they going to be able to sustain it for the length of the practice? There’s a number of guys like that who are getting a bunch more opportunities right now because there’s guys that are established. Jason Cabinda? We pretty much know who he is. That doesn’t mean that he still doesn’t have areas that he needs to get better and still needs to work on, but there’s other guys that we have more pressing needs to figure out who they are."
And so in the process, they have a situation where they're confident with the overall numbers that they have - calling the program two deep in many cases and even three deep in others. But, they're not at a stage where they're even coming close to making decisions. Those will come in preseason.
We'll leave it at that for the night.
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