Slow week spring practice tidbits
I'm sure y'all are doing your best to get through this week with no football practice, struggling basketball, and awesome softball that is not televised, just as I am. Bill Greene from Scout dropped some more insider bits today, just thought I'd paraphrase them here to give the board it's fix before the team gets back to work next week.
1. Practices are much longer and faster (this has been made known previously). Hitting in practice is much more intense/often.
2. Coaches have been disappointed in QB play. Malzone has been good, but is young/has technical things to learn. Speight has been better than Morris, but neither can seperate from the frosh.
3. Isaac missed Friday with his dislocated finger so Green and Smith took nearly all the reps and got hit a lot. Coaches were good with this, want guys learning to be tough when exhausted.
4. Wide Receivers have been steady. Brian Cole looks good and so does Drake Harris.
5. Offensive Line has been the strength of the team. Logan Tuley-Tillman stands out, as well as Dawson and Kalis. Everyone looks improved, everyone is shifting around on the line trying different positions. "Deep and talented" said Greene.
Don't shoot the messenger, just giving some info for those not on the scout boards. Looks like the safest bet on Sep. 3 QB is Rudock/Malzone over The Field (although there's a lot of time). Great OL and solid receivers should be music to all fans' ears. Hopefully Isaac can comeback right away and continue the competition at the position (he'd be my bet for the workhorse this year).
Yeah, but it seems those talking heads on the BTN like to talk up B1G teams. It seems they always talk about some guy who's going to be good or break out or whatever, but they never say some kid is going to be a bust.
I assume this means the blocking schemes are fairly similar to the previous regime's.
I love how people make huge assumptions based on nothing more than recruiting rankings. "Malzone has a lower ceiling than Gentry." All you're really saying is that Gentry was a more highly rated recruit. There is no way you, I, or the recruting services have a clue as to who has the highest ceiling among our QBs.
Which always makes jokes more funny.
Smart counts for a lot at QB, and everything I read indicates that Malzone is smart, in general, and very smart in his game knowledge. My recollection is that a lot of people did not think Joe Montana was that great of an athlete, but he had other compensating factors. Maybe Malzone will be more like him and less like some of the other whiz kids (Jeff George comes to mind) who have a lot of athleticism but neither kind of smarts.
did a great job developing the line. Disappointed with QBs is not surprising really. No development, can't read defenses, etc, watching Gardner we knew this already! So what is the status of Ruddock? What about possible juco transfer QBs?
You played OL for Bo, right? I'll trust your judgment lol.
I think it is smart to take EVERYTHING out of spring with lots of grains of salt. Last year our big 3 breakout guys were RJS, Bolden, and Canteen. That was 1 out of 3 in reality. Blake was being talked up as about to have a huge year doing backflips on the grass (again).
Meanwhile guys like Cole (who was EE) were not discussed.
Until they do it against another team that is not from the MAC (or UNLV) salt should be ingested but as we all know, it won't be that often by many. Nature of being a sports fan.
I am just glad there seems to be real competition on the OL for the first time in 3 friggin yrs, rather than praying to even find 5 guys as has been the case the past 2 sad years.
I'm probably the only person here who feels bad for Shane. You have to think he had very high expectations for his time at Michigan. The coaching situation didn't help him at all, though it's too hard to say whether he would have succeeded with a different coach. But that has to play in the back of his mind: what might have been had there been more coaching stability. Maybe he just doesn't have what it takes to play at this level, but I don't think that's something you accept while you're in the middle of it. I think it takes years of hindsight to fully grasp that.
like Brother Rice were saying he had a great deal of raw talent but it just didn't translate on the field.
I didn't believe them but they turned out to be right.
Moral of the story is if you don't look good in HS, chances are that you're likely to wash out in college.
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= wishbone, with Drake Johnson at QB. . .
...is cause for celebration.
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Sheepman had to say that on purpose...right?