Day 3 Notes from Football Practice
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We had another modest window of media availability on Sunday to Texas football practice and here are a few notes from the day:
- It was the first day with helmets and shoulder pads, and the events started out with the circle drill in which coaches pit players against one another in the middle of a circle to try and take each other down. We were at too far a distance to see who won/lost or even participated, but I'm sure the Texas media department will put out some sort of video of the drill, so keep an eye out. One of the production guys was flying a drone camera right over the top of the circle to get good shots.
- There really continues to be nothing much to report as far as the first two groups on the defensive side of the football. Those have remained completely unchanged through three practices now. There have been some interesting movements with the third and fourth groups, though, and a few takeaways:
1) It will be interesting to see which player between freshman DLs Moro Ojomo and Keonte Coburn end up getting the most run with the third group through the rest of spring. The rotation between the threes and the fours seems pretty fluid with the two but as of the end of the day Sunday, it seems like Ojomo has gotten more run ahead of Coburn than vice versa.
2) DL D'Andre Christmas is still buried and the time is running out for him to flip a switch with these two young players coming in and appearing to be the types of prospects advertised in recruiting.
3) Has S Montrell Estell been recruited over already? He was a good prospect who I hesitate to write off so early in his career, but he's not getting much run outside of the third and sometimes fourth groups. Safety isn't a position at Texas where you want to be an older player pushed down the chart as the young group at the position is outstanding. We'll have to see how this one plays out for Estell.
- I spent most of the rest of my time around the offensive line, which I will write about in the next note, but quickly on the receivers, I continue to be impressed with Jordan Pouncey who, by now, we should be talking about as a guy likely to break out in 2018 and surprise folks who aren't in the know. I haven't seen him drop a single ball through three days of open media windows and not every throw he's fielded has been a beauty.
- A few notes on the offensive line as the pads went on today and we were able to see these guys running at hitting at speeds much, much closer to "live":
1) I'd be burying the lede by not addressing grad transfer OT Calvin Anderson first off. He was viewed as a critical piece coming in by fans and analysts alike (yours truly included) to the unit's continued improvement. While he still has a chance to be that critical piece, I think it's fair to say the guy has had a slow start. Again today, he was not working exclusively with the ones, also taking reps with the twos and even the threes. Furthermore, RS FR Samuel Cosmi seemed to take more reps at first LT during the open window than Anderson and Denzel Okafor most certainly did as well. Is new OL coach Herb Hand making him "earn it'? Well, that's impossible to know, but what you can tell is that Anderson hasn't exactly looked like a world beater thus far. He could still be rounding into form, or he could have issues with his conditioning. In fact, as the OL group was jogging from one side of the field to the other to go through inside-run portion, Herb Hand yelled out to everybody, "I JOG FASTER THAN CALVIN ANDERSON AND I HAD MY KNEE REPLACED SIX MONTHS AGO!!" This could all be water under the bridge by the end of fall camp, but it's where we look to be after three days.
2) Some notes from the two-man sled:
- I laughed out loud at how strong OG Patrick Hudson was hitting the two-man with another muscle-bound and suddenly ridiculously beastly looking dude in OG Tope Imade. Anyone who's been around many football practices knows what happens when you get an unevenly matched couple of guys on the two-man together and what happens is the sled skews like crazy to one side. They kept having to straighten it out for the next duo. Hudson's overall health continues to look fine to me.
- In contrast to Hudson, you can see that freshman OT Reese Moore has some work to do in the strength department which is completely expected. He moves well, has good feet and is a developmental-type of tackle prospect. The strength will come but the ability to move at that size can't be instilled as easily. Fellow freshman Christian Jones was getting the sled off-kilter with these two similarly to how Hudson did Imade.
3) A note from the zone-angle and power-step board drills
- The most praise I heard during open practice for a lineman from Hand was given to freshman OG/OT Junior Angilau who was complimented for taking a clean step and a nice, flat angle down the board in outside-zone/down-blocking simulations. Angilau who was moving down the board to his left, was made an example of by Hand to the rest of the group for keeping a "strong right arm" in the down block -- in essence, keeping the play-side half of his body strong and making his chest difficult to penetrate across which will be key in situations where he and other guards will have to block down on one-shades.
4) Two quick notes from the inside-run drills
- If I can be guaranteed health all season, hands down, give me Kirk Johnson as my running back if my job were on the line as a coach.
- Tope Imade is a better pulling guard than Patrick Vahe. Unlike Vahe, Imade actually keeps his head up and engages his target with leverage, both on the outside in kick-out situations and on the inside when he has to turn up to find the outside linebacker. Imade is a little stiff and muscle-bound with his recent hulk-like transformation, but he'll make for good depth at guard that actually does some things better than Vahe does.
presented by the Dental Offices of Wendy Swantkowski, DDS
The Absolute BEST in family and cosmetic dentistry for the Houston-Memorial Area
Now Accepting New Patients --- 281-293-9140
Support the Short by supporting our sponsor - Give Wendy a call today!
We had another modest window of media availability on Sunday to Texas football practice and here are a few notes from the day:
- It was the first day with helmets and shoulder pads, and the events started out with the circle drill in which coaches pit players against one another in the middle of a circle to try and take each other down. We were at too far a distance to see who won/lost or even participated, but I'm sure the Texas media department will put out some sort of video of the drill, so keep an eye out. One of the production guys was flying a drone camera right over the top of the circle to get good shots.
- There really continues to be nothing much to report as far as the first two groups on the defensive side of the football. Those have remained completely unchanged through three practices now. There have been some interesting movements with the third and fourth groups, though, and a few takeaways:
1) It will be interesting to see which player between freshman DLs Moro Ojomo and Keonte Coburn end up getting the most run with the third group through the rest of spring. The rotation between the threes and the fours seems pretty fluid with the two but as of the end of the day Sunday, it seems like Ojomo has gotten more run ahead of Coburn than vice versa.
2) DL D'Andre Christmas is still buried and the time is running out for him to flip a switch with these two young players coming in and appearing to be the types of prospects advertised in recruiting.
3) Has S Montrell Estell been recruited over already? He was a good prospect who I hesitate to write off so early in his career, but he's not getting much run outside of the third and sometimes fourth groups. Safety isn't a position at Texas where you want to be an older player pushed down the chart as the young group at the position is outstanding. We'll have to see how this one plays out for Estell.
- I spent most of the rest of my time around the offensive line, which I will write about in the next note, but quickly on the receivers, I continue to be impressed with Jordan Pouncey who, by now, we should be talking about as a guy likely to break out in 2018 and surprise folks who aren't in the know. I haven't seen him drop a single ball through three days of open media windows and not every throw he's fielded has been a beauty.
- A few notes on the offensive line as the pads went on today and we were able to see these guys running at hitting at speeds much, much closer to "live":
1) I'd be burying the lede by not addressing grad transfer OT Calvin Anderson first off. He was viewed as a critical piece coming in by fans and analysts alike (yours truly included) to the unit's continued improvement. While he still has a chance to be that critical piece, I think it's fair to say the guy has had a slow start. Again today, he was not working exclusively with the ones, also taking reps with the twos and even the threes. Furthermore, RS FR Samuel Cosmi seemed to take more reps at first LT during the open window than Anderson and Denzel Okafor most certainly did as well. Is new OL coach Herb Hand making him "earn it'? Well, that's impossible to know, but what you can tell is that Anderson hasn't exactly looked like a world beater thus far. He could still be rounding into form, or he could have issues with his conditioning. In fact, as the OL group was jogging from one side of the field to the other to go through inside-run portion, Herb Hand yelled out to everybody, "I JOG FASTER THAN CALVIN ANDERSON AND I HAD MY KNEE REPLACED SIX MONTHS AGO!!" This could all be water under the bridge by the end of fall camp, but it's where we look to be after three days.
2) Some notes from the two-man sled:
- I laughed out loud at how strong OG Patrick Hudson was hitting the two-man with another muscle-bound and suddenly ridiculously beastly looking dude in OG Tope Imade. Anyone who's been around many football practices knows what happens when you get an unevenly matched couple of guys on the two-man together and what happens is the sled skews like crazy to one side. They kept having to straighten it out for the next duo. Hudson's overall health continues to look fine to me.
- In contrast to Hudson, you can see that freshman OT Reese Moore has some work to do in the strength department which is completely expected. He moves well, has good feet and is a developmental-type of tackle prospect. The strength will come but the ability to move at that size can't be instilled as easily. Fellow freshman Christian Jones was getting the sled off-kilter with these two similarly to how Hudson did Imade.
3) A note from the zone-angle and power-step board drills
- The most praise I heard during open practice for a lineman from Hand was given to freshman OG/OT Junior Angilau who was complimented for taking a clean step and a nice, flat angle down the board in outside-zone/down-blocking simulations. Angilau who was moving down the board to his left, was made an example of by Hand to the rest of the group for keeping a "strong right arm" in the down block -- in essence, keeping the play-side half of his body strong and making his chest difficult to penetrate across which will be key in situations where he and other guards will have to block down on one-shades.
4) Two quick notes from the inside-run drills
- If I can be guaranteed health all season, hands down, give me Kirk Johnson as my running back if my job were on the line as a coach.
- Tope Imade is a better pulling guard than Patrick Vahe. Unlike Vahe, Imade actually keeps his head up and engages his target with leverage, both on the outside in kick-out situations and on the inside when he has to turn up to find the outside linebacker. Imade is a little stiff and muscle-bound with his recent hulk-like transformation, but he'll make for good depth at guard that actually does some things better than Vahe does.
