Well, I finally made it out to a practice session today... A few comments.
I can't believe that punting will be the first thing that I bring up, but watching Urrego punt is great. Nearly every punt is 50 - 60 yards in the air with good hang time. There was a lot of special teams work going on, and I know it's not 100% live, but our outside guys on kickoff coverage are getting down field in a hurry. Given the hang time that Urrego will provide, I think we'll see a vast improvement in our net punting, which was down near the bottom of the conference last season. Don't get me wrong, Urrego had a great punting season last year, but our net punting stunk due to our return yards that we gave up. Jones and D'Ambrosio looked good returning kicks. Jones is very fast, and It won't surprise me one bit to hear Mr Hewitt shout out "to the 20, to the 10, to the house" on his broadcast at some point this season.
Hagen had the majority (if not all) of the snaps during the live scrimmage and didn't look so hot. The wind had picked up a little bit, but his throws didn't look tight at all. There was a good run that looked to be off tackle that hit for about 10 yards, and another long run on an option, but that outside option run would have gone for a loss if the QB wasn't off limits to hit. All in all, the live defense was further along than the live offense today.
In watching the 1st string offense do their reps, I think they looked good. Howland had some good throws, with the exception of what looked to be a fairly deep out pattern where he put the ball into the turf in front of an open receiver. Quite a few option plays were worked on and the pitches to Bobby looked good with the exception of one that Kavanaugh threw too low. With Bobby running the option I can say this. If the DE bites on the QB, and the linebacker gets blocked, I really, really feel sorry for the poor corners of the Big Sky that may have to try to make an open field tackle on Bobby. He's a beast, and you can bet that he won't be looking to juke. Dump truck, meet Vespa scooter. ;-)
The first string defense looks good. Jones was working more on offense and returns today, so he wasn't taking reps at corner. I'm not sure who that was on the right side, as there wasn't a name on the jersey, and I'm not sure if the numbers were correct. Maybe Colin Williams? He seemed pretty tall. McCrae, Schantz, and the Pedersens are going to be fun to watch. I can't wait for the Western game to see them hit. This unit is seems so much further ahead in the 3-4 system than our group was last year. I hope we have a couple of blowouts so that the younger 2 deep guys get some downs early in the year. That'll really help ensure that we have the depth going into conference play.
Brown wasn't in pads, but was doing conditioning during practice. If that knee and hammy heal up, he should have a good season. He's looking stronger than last year and looks to be in great shape. We need some good Viking karma to keep him healthy and on the field this year.
It still feels like summer with the heat wave this week, but I can smell a hint of football in the air.
