Open practice reaction thread

Ok, so to start off I was one of the first 200 in the door so I got to watch practice from the field, which was cool, but affects my analysis along the lines because I was at a bad angle to watch the interactions between the offensive and defensive lines. Play calling was very vanilla, which I fully expected, no reason to show anything off for the only practice that was semi-open to the public. That being said, here we go.

OFFENSE

QB - Rudock looked like the starter at this point, ran with the first string much more than Morris, and just plain looked better. The offense moved much better with Rudock at the helm, quite noticeably in my opinion. Rudock also showed off a little scrambling ability that I was unaware he had, a naked bootleg play was called for him a couple times and he was able to get the edge pretty quickly, reminded me very much of watching the highlights from the 1997 season, where the naked boot was something of a calling card for Griese and the offense. Wilton Spieght looked ok, pretty good arm strength, but he also threw the only interception of the day, so take that for what it's worth. Gentry is an absolute monster, he's astoundingly huge, I did a double take the first time I saw him. O'Korn looked pretty good in the pre-scrimmage warm ups, lots of zip on the ball, excited to see how the race shakes out next year

RB - There wasn't very much notable seperation between the running backs, but I would feel confident saying that the top two were Deveon Smith and Ty Isaac. There weren't any huge gainers from the running backs, but there also weren't any massively negative plays... Whether that is a compliment to the running backs or the offensive line remains to be seen, but it was encouraging nonetheless.

FB - No suprises here, Joe Kerridge will be the man here.

WR - The receivers were an interesting bunch, nobody stood head and shoulders above the rest, but the first string was a notable combination of Drake Harris, Jehu Chesson, and Grant Perry. Harris still looks painfully thin, but he also looked like he could finally be coming into his own, which would be so great for an offense desperately needing a playmaker on the outside. Chesson was the Chesson we know, nothing flashy, but if Harris truly is stepping up he'll be a solid number two. The Grant Perry hype is real ladies and gentlemen, he gets really good seperation, and I think he'll be an important contributor to this offense as a freshman. Of the the guys lower on the depth chart, Moe Ways stood out to me, made a couple nice catches. *Notable DNP's: Amara Darboh was not dressed, and I'm not sure if Brian Cole was either, I know he switched his number to 41, but I did not see him at all, was there an injury earlier in the offseason that I missed?

TE - This spot has me really excited, Harbaugh's offense is well known for utilizing it's tight ends, and we have a bevy of guys that could contribute IMO. Jake Butt is the clear number one here, he's was just flat out impressive. On the receiving side of things, Bunting looked pretty good, really tall and long arms, could be used as great size mismatch against average sized linebackers and safeties. On the blocking side of things, AJ Williams is looking good, and Poggi got some run with the ones, which was cool. Khalid Hill did not show me much after a somewhat promising season last year, but it could be chalked up to just one bad day for him. Regardless, we won't be sorely missing him even if he doesn't take that next step.

OL- Again, because of the bad angle, I couldn't get the looks I wanted on the offensive line. Starters were from left to right: Cole, Braden, Glasgow, Kalis, Magnuson. From what I could tell, it is obvious that the line has come a long way since the horror show that was the 2014 Spring Game and early 2014 season, which is reassuring, to say the least. *Notable DNP: Patrick Kugler was on crutches, looks like he will not be pushing for the center spot like some on the board were hoping.

DEFENSE

DL - Couldn't get too much on the defensive line again because of the bad angle, but it didn't seem like we've found that pass rusher yet. Kind of scarily, Rudock was able to break contain pretty easily on the naked bootleg plays mentioned earlier, I hope that's not a sign of things to come, because Taysom Hill of BYU will be a nightmare if this defense cannot contain mobile QBs, let alone the two-headed monster in Columbus.

LB - Morgan, Bolden, and Ross all looked pretty good here. Near the beginning of practice, the team ran a version of the Oklahoma drill with 2 offensive guys but only 1 defensive guy, and Ross absolutely stood up his block, to the delight of the crowd. I think we'll be very comfortable here with the depth we have at the moment, such as Gedeon, especially because we're running a 4-2-5 look defense I would say at least 60% of the time.

CB - Jeremy Clark and Stribling were the starters here, and they looked pretty good. I'm excited to see what Clark can do, he's nice and long, should play very well in press coverage, although I wouldn't put him on an island quite yet. Lyons was not on the field with the first string but this could simply be because of the abundance of talent we have at safety, and the desire to have Peppers rather than Lyons at the nickel. It is interesting that Stribling was playing in front of him though. *Notable DNP: Jourdan Lewis was dressed but did not practice, not sure what to make of this, because it wasn't clear to me wether this was an injury or disciplinary action. IMO it would be a very Harbaughesque punishment to be forced to sit on the sidelines and watch your teammates get better while you could not.

S - This was the highlight of practice for me. The safeties rotated often and without a noticeable dip in the caliber of player. Peppers was almost always on the field and moving all over, the jack of all trades suggestions seem to be spot on. This will be the strong spot of the defense, if we can get any semblance of a pass rush going, this group will terrorize opposing teams.

SPECIAL TEAMS

The only special teams we really saw were the place kickers. At this point it looks like a race between Allen and Seychel, and I'm not sure which one I'd go with at this point, Seychel looks like he puts more on the ball, but it doesn't spin as much which worries me if we play on a windy Saturday. I think we'll be good either way, doesn't look like we'll have distance concerns with either kicker. O'Niell was the holder from what I saw.

UNIFORMZ

Kind of weird here, the team seemed to be wearing the 2015 helmet and pants, but the 2014 tops. The difference between the Maize on the jerseys and the helmets/pants was quite noticeable, I much prefer the 2015 Maize, it looks much less washed out in comparison. I can confirm that the block M thigh pads are real, and can also reassure the board that you can only see them if the player is 5 yards or closer to you. Also, I'm sure this will break WD's heart, but not all of the cleats were black, there was Maize on many of the cleats, Peppers' and Gedeon's cleats were noticeably all Maize, although these could be remnants from last year like the 2014 tops we wore tonight.