OT - I was lucky enough to watch spring practice today

because i hate my laptop and its f'ed up keys...thought it was neat...and didn't know there was other spring games at michigan...be as pissy as you want - please neg me, i've never been negged yet :)

lol-you guys are great...gotta go "i'm pressed for time" and need to get to "pee-wee" practice...whatever the case, i get a close up view of things, really no big deal

will do...our head fb coach has been friends with him since tulane days - we run a version of the spread option, so he gets with rr every year to pick his brain...he was up there on monday and said "they look faster than hell" and "much faster than last year" (he attended a few practices last year as well) our coach has been here 26 years and won a large number of games - i really consider his word pretty solid...geuss we will see...

EDIT FROM ABOVE JUST TO COVER MY ASS: i'm sure they don't want any specific info leaked out...i'm just going as a casual observer and don't want to piss anyone off, nor would i think of jeoprodizing our coaches relationship with coach rod...hoping like hell i can get some pics though, which if allowed, i will share on here(i plan on asking a grad ass when i get there if i can snap some pics - hope its not the same guy who was supposed to be filling out the practice logs...) the "upshot" of this may be i have a college hoops backround so i probably couldn't analyze any specifics if they hit me right in the face - you guys know far more football than i ever will - but i will be representing "mgoboard" proudly !

just got back from practice...quite a fascinating experience(can't get into details for two main reasons 1. i don't want to ruin the chance to go back up for another workout 2. i really couldn't analyze football if they paid me too)...few observations...denard looked fantastic, gardner had a hell of a time handling snaps but looks like he has one helluva of a future...tate did not have a great day overall...denard looks to have a far better handle on things with a year under his belt...i was amazed at the sheer number of throwing reps the qbs got in 2.5 hours...shaw and cox ran the ball well and blocked very well...o line looks bigger and faster for sure...defense was hard to judge, looks like they were running quite a few guys in and out...rr was kind enough to come over and speak with our staff for 5 minutes after they broke; pretty general stuff but was about as nice a guy as you will meet...trust me, they had one helluva handle on time as far as getting kids out right at 6pm...at 6:05 another horn sounded and rr chuckled and said something to the effect of he had better get out, they are watching me...rr also said with a smile that this was the first time they were in glick for indoor practice and something like "hell they built it, we figured we might as well use it" ...they do have strict rules: no cell phones, cameras, etc...got to meet rr's wife and also saw dave brandon there watching from a distance - overall he doesn't look like the happiest guy i've ever seen(brandon), but not sure looking happy was in his contract...they had an announcer driving around on a golf cart playing various songs, (fight song, etc) and oddly he would announce a play by play of a drill randomly about every 10 minutes...dinardo and the rest of the big ten channel crew was there taking notes and getting ready to do a show on the spring workouts...before you blast me, i know this is vague, but i played the role of "casual observer", talking to people most of the 3 hours and just soaking in a pretty neat experience...i will say his practices are high intensity/high tempo and he chewed some serious ass a few times as well...did notice "gerg" seems to take the "nice guy", almost "grandpa-like" approach with defensive players...i would love to see more fire on that side of ball, but i don't know shit anyways:) sorry, i know this is a pretty weak, scattered synopsis, but there was so much to take in it was tough to get detailed...i told brian i would email him some more details but i never had a chance to really get anything of any real subtance - my apologies in advance... the one thing we did comment on was when they started to scrimmage, how would one really get excited if: defense does well, you panic about the offense...if offense chews up the d, well, we panic even more about the defense...(campbell and roh looked very solid) gibbons (sp?) looked great kicking field goals as well - nailed some 30+ yarders with plenty of room to spare...punters...hmm... well, you can tell zoltan isn't there any more, no real "boomers" that i saw... got a nice tour of glick and schembechler - first class facilities !

also heard barwis talking to a young man in the weight room - i was ready to run through a wall after just a few seconds...and to piggyback another topic i saw on here, i saw brock mealer lifting his feet up as he sat in his wheelchair with a pretty happy look on his face-great to see...as another poster put it so perfectly, i'm surprised rich rod even lets him hang around, being he(rr) is such a horrible guy with such shitty values... lol

saw barwis eating a baby, but he did so neatly and wasn't very vocal while masticating, which, in my opinion shows manners

denards complete package looked unreal...and i mean, tate and gardner have just want rich rod loves..competition, and plenty of it...arm was dead on, zone read looked great, and did i mention he has decent speed? lol

lol, and yes i thought his football skills looked sharper than any of the other two qbs - by far...and that seemed to be the buzz...but getting back to his package - "unreal" lmao

i wanted to add other tidbits as they came to me...kenny demens, #25, can flat out hit...he stuck out by far over the last two hours of contact as being the type of "foam at the mouth" type defensive maniac we need...fred jackson's son had some nice grabs; stonum had a number of drops, but had some great grabs in the 2 minute drill...qb center exchange got a little ugly(especially with gardner..maybe 12 to 15 fumbled snaps...combo of his focus on some and center on other instances)he did some things inately that left many of us coaches thinking and saying there is little doubt he is the future...rr had a first class melt down at one point on one of the centers...molk sat on the stationary bike the whole time, along with vincent smith and a few others peddling their asses off...roh looked bigger and faster - just works his tail off the entire time - his work ethic was fun to watch - he never takes a play off...i wish i didn't have the memory of an old fu_k, or i would have soaked in more...the ambien is killing my memory

thanks guys...i walked around working hard not to look like a fing kid in a candy store...it is such high intensity, high tempo that it's hard to focus on one thing...we really watched the qbs for a good hour - we stood right behind stonum when the three qbs threw some quick outs to him - those guys throw harder than f#@k - much harder than i thought...denard threw the tightest, hardest sprial of the three with gardner second and tate third...tate seems to throw the best when he's scrambling...there were some points where denard was told to put some touch on ball...gardner is very vocal...funny thing happened - a recruit who knew him walked up and gardner ripped him for not having his pants pulled up far enough, or something of the sort - i was about 15 yards away, but he said something like "we don't do that shit here"...the kid is trying hard to lead and thats nice to see, because some of the raw skills we saw out of him thurs were, lets say - making me feel good about things to come...i did see cox just ring rohs bell in the michigan drill...roh did a 360 after getting up, wobbled and got right back in - what a tough ass kid... had one other comical tidbit.. the 5 centers did some after practice shotgun snapping to tackles...one of the frosh tackles said "i can do that", got in the drill and just made a fool of himself - molk busted his ass for quite a bit as did the line coaches...