Practice Notes

Generic Practice Notes:

I was able to attend the morning practice on Wednesday and came away excited for the season after getting to watch a lot of offensive drills and some 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 scrimmaging.   I am planning to attend the scrimmage this morning (Saturday), which is supposed to go from about 9:00-11:30.  The scrimmage will be followed by “Healthy Kids Day” with all kinds of fun crap for the little future Buffs.  I will post something Sunday (hopefully) as well, though not about the Kids day stuff. Here are the basics and the obvious from Wednesday and the rest of the week.

§  It was a distinctly different atmosphere from the last time we were able to watch fall practices two years ago.  There was music playing loud but not too loud and good rock and 80’s tunes.   The coaches are still very vocal but not nearly as loud as the previous regime and a little less intense.  That’s not to say there isn’t any fire as even some coaches got a little heated. The intensity was still very high, lots of talking, encouraging, cheering and coaching going on.

§  The practices are indeed spread out across all the fields, working at a fast pace, moving players through centers within positional groups, jogging at end of a reps and between drills, kids aren’t standing around that much.

§  The DBs get extra attention and reps since they have two coaches, Andy LaRussa (loudest and youngest of the bunch) with the corners, and Charles Clark in charge of the safeties and nickelbacks, plus MacIntyre spends a lot of his time with them as well.

§  It didn’t seem like there were too many injuries, but TE Kyle Slavin was working drills more like a coach after breaking his hand and is questionable for the csu game. True frosh S Tedric Thompson was wearing a bright blue “no contact” jersey, but participating in most drills.

§  The defense was especially spirited as they ruled the day with what I saw; however, the offense was without two starting offensive lineman-interior lineman Daniel Munyer was in pads but still working on side on his own and said he is almost back and RT Stepane Nembot’s absence for personal reasons was visible because the guy is huge!

§  LB Derrick Webb is the unquestioned leader of the defense, very vocal on the sidelines and very active on the field.

§  I think it is nice of MacIntyre to say the QB race is still wide open but from my untrained eye, from the looks of how they were giving reps and who was performing, Connor Wood will be the starter barring only injury.  Kyle Ringo agrees. Paul Richardson all but made the claim: “Connor is an older guy now. So he kind of feels like he has to lead the pack. Him feeling like that has made him step up. It's helped out chemistry on offense, which has helped our chemistry with him throwing me the ball. We score a lot every day. Every day we score a lot."  So, what he’s saying is that they score a lot against the CU defense.

§  True frosh Sefo Liufau has impressed everyone abd OC/QB coach Brian Lindgren says he as far along as any freshmen he has seen, and I certainly thought he looked the part, although not as accurate as Wood or Gehrke.  Up to recently my gut thought Sefo will redshirt, but he may actually force the issue.  QB play in today’s scrimmage will be crucial for all three backups.

§  The freshman wide receivers all looked good, with Ross seemingly the most at ease and confident, after getting much praise from coaches; he is likely to play and the other two redshirt.

§  DD Goodson has some nice moves and…Paul Richardson is the man!  No one could cover him…

§  Which gives me concern about the DBs because they are some really good receivers in this conference besides P-Rich.  Crawley especially appeared to struggle against anyone.  It was nice to see Jered Bell healthy and running around with the first team. Some non-scholarship DBs-Isaac Archuleta and Richard Yates-made some nice plays.  Frosh Chidobe Awuzie is making his name and number 4 known on the practice fields (more below).

§  I didn’t see the kickers but MacIntyre said that Oliver has the main kicking job: “Will’s been very accurate, very competitive, and very professional in the way he works at it.”

§  Darian Hagan was taking in practice and chatting it up with some fans; he is the only holdover from the previous regime, now working on the administrative side.

§  Thursday’s practice was switched at the last minute “due to extenuating circumstances” and moved from the morning to the heat of the afternoon.  The offense had two 95-yard drives and the defense had an interception returned for a touchdown.

§  Friday’s practice was attended by about 40 former Buffs, who observed, cheered on and then talked to current players after practice.  The group included Blake Anderson

§  Great article on the receivers and their coach Troy Walters by BG Brooks: http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=209114060

Freshmen: Coaches have talked a lot about CB Chidobe Awuzie (everyone calls him “Chido” which happens to mean “cool” en español) and he showed why-he just makes plays happen (interception, 2 broken passes and a forced fumble).  It seems like he was the first nickel (not Parker Orms who was running exclusively with the twos).  My maybe not so bold prediction now is that Chido becomes the third true frosh in three years to start at cornerback for the Buffs.

§  Offensive lineman Gunnar Graham is huge!  TE Connor Center also looks the part, and seemed to catch fairly well, but I would still expect him to redshirt and develop.

§  2014 Recruiting: The Buffs are now up to 11 (“But this one goes to e-leven.”)  verbal commitments for this cycle after receiving their third verbal commitment from a defensive lineman in less than two weeks.  Sam Bennion from Logan, Utah is the latest, preceded by Jase Franke (Ventura/St. Bonaventure, CA) and Eddy Lopez (El Paso, TX). 

§  What does this say about what MacIntyre and Jeffcoat think of the group of d-lineman they currently have on the roster?  While the team has lost a few guys from the many recent prospects (most recently Kory Rasmussen and John Stuart, and even Stephane Nembot who switched to o-line) and they will graduate starter Uzo-Diribe and backup Nate Bonsu, the team is not going to sign eight d-lineman again.  For starters, Bennion will take his two-year mission before stepping on campus.  They have a decent amount of young talent and will add a little to the unit each year.  You want to get 3-5 offensive and defensive lineman every cycle.

§  Other Buff Notes: The ESPN Pac12 Blog did position reviews for the entire Pac12, rating each team and now they have given point values to rate each team overall.  For each position group teams received 3 points for “Great Shape”, 2 for “Good Shape” and 1 for “We’ll See” (but 2-1-0 for kicker and punter) and the Buffs ended up ranked Eleventh! Utah only garnered 12 points (8 out of 11 were “We’ll See”) two behind the Buffs.  Oregon was number one with 28 points (8 of 11 “Great shape”), and Arizona was only two points ahead of CU with 16 for 10^th place.

§  Nothing new really from their “Colorado Preview” but here’s the latest low-win last place preview: http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/60114/colorado-buffaloes-season-preview?ex_cid=espnapi_public

§  CU ranked 33^rd on the "Academic Ranking of World Universities 2013" list of top universities across the globe.

§  The good, bad and the ugly from David Bahktiari, who has been elevated to starting left tackle for the Green Bay Packers.  He said that last year’s Buff team was dysfunctional, that many players didn’t really care and gave up, and that more players would head out from Thursday practice to “Ladies night” at a local bar than would stay to watch more film voluntarily.