Presser/Practice Notes 9-2 Comment Count

Tim
Light day at the press conference today, aside from the pseudo-bombshell that Brandon Minor is still injured, and is now considered questionable for Saturday. It remains to be seen how much of this is legit, and how much is gamesmanship/giving the press something new to talk about. Either way, not good. Carlos Brown would get the start if Minor can't go, with Shaw, Grady, and Vincent Smith also garnering playing time. Rich says the coaches are starting to have a good idea of who will start at QB on Saturday. They'll let the quarterbacks know tomorrow night who is getting the starting nod. Big focuses in camp this year: holding onto the ball and avoiding negative yardage offensive plays. He felt like they held onto the ball pretty well in last year's camp (and we know how that turned out), but it's even better this year. During punt return practice, the returners seemed to be having some sort of competition to not be the first to drop one. When someone finally did, a grad assistant who had been turned the other way immediately turned around and asked "Was it Terrence [Robinson]?" It was.

Comments

Glutton

September 2nd, 2009 at 3:50 PM ^

With Brian surmising Terrance's best chance of playing this fall might be on punt returns, that does not sound too good for his PT...and the icing is the grad student knew it without seeing it live.

Don

September 2nd, 2009 at 3:58 PM ^

seems like that should be one of the easier things a football player is asked to do. Maybe he needs contacts. Anyone know if Gallon has been tried back there?

ShakersFromDaUP

September 2nd, 2009 at 4:18 PM ^

As a punt returner in high school, it took all of my concentration to just catch the damn thing. Most of the time I caught it and just fell over. We should obviously be holding big-time college athletes to a higher standard, but by no means is catching a punt easy.

HartAttack20

September 2nd, 2009 at 6:40 PM ^

I have caught my fair share of punts in the back yard just playing with my brother and I didn't find it TOO difficult. My brother for sure can not get the ball as high as D-1 punters, but it was decently up there and I can catch a pretty good majority of them. It is a lot more difficult when you have guys running into your face, though, and you have to worry about what you are going to do with it and if you should fair catch. Just saying, it's not too bad just catching the ball. If you are at all experienced, you know to focus on the ball and not worry about the other stuff.

ColoradoBlue

September 2nd, 2009 at 4:17 PM ^

It's one of those things that's much harder than it looks, especially if the ball is tumbling end-over-end. Add to the physical challenge the mental pressure of being on a virtual island in such a zero-tolerance situation, and you have a recipe for some dropsies. I returned punts in high school... the feeling you get before the play is akin to the feeling you get when your number is called for a pass over the middle in LB territory (X 10). It's exciting, but that knock-out blow is always in the back of your mind. The damn ball seems to hang up there forEVER!!

evenyoubrutus

September 2nd, 2009 at 4:05 PM ^

Terrence Robinson transfers because he will never see the field, and there will be a front-pager on the Freep because ANOTHER player left the RichRod program, but this was one who Rich personally recruited! OMG OMG OMG! He's lost all control of his program!

Sparky79

September 2nd, 2009 at 7:16 PM ^

And just needs to get his vision checked. The only player I felt comfortable with fielding punts last season was Greg Mathews. He's most likely not going to break one to the end zone, but his hands are very solid and as long as he holds on to the ball, that's all that matters.

bklein09

September 2nd, 2009 at 4:51 PM ^

On a positive note, its good to hear that Forcier/Robinson will know they are getting the start as of tomorrow night. I am definitely bummed about Minor, but I have a lot of faith that the other guys can pick up the slack behind our much improved offensive line. Just gotta hope that Minor is 100% for the ND game so he can smash some golden domes.

BlueDog

September 2nd, 2009 at 6:02 PM ^

I am positive I heard an ESPN talking head mention the "high spring GPA of the current team" and wonder why nobody is making a bigger deal of that. Has anybody else heard it? Was the TV talking just to me?