Monday was another post-scrimmage recovery practice so it consisted of a little bit of individual drills and a lot of scout team work and specials teams work. The defense mainly focused on scout team work for teams they will be facing next season.
The offense mainly focused on correcting mistakes they made during the scrimmage. The offensive line really worked on their footwork technique, the running backs did a bunch of cone drills to work on their quick cutting, and the quarterbacks worked on their timing with the tights and wide receivers, spending some extra time working on fade routes in the red zone.
To end practice, the entire offensive line worked on their kick slides and first step(s) by having every linemen lined up at one end zone along the goal line, facing the sideline, and practicing their kick slide going left on every five-yard maker until they reached the other goal line (20 reps). Once they reached the other goal line, they did the same thing going right (20 reps). I think it was designed to have them execute their technique well even as they got more and more tired. And to hammer in the idea that they need to slide their feet better and quicker.
When I asked Rocky if all these drills were related to the scrimmage he confirmed that was the point.
It was obvious that the offense didn’t play to the level that the coaches expected during the spring game so I asked him a bit about the obvious weakness: the OL. I’ll have a story up on it later about the reasons for their struggles and why there is a silver lining heading into next year. But the big point he made that I thought matched my feelings after the game was that when Rocky called the defensive plays in past scrimmages, he would let up from his crazy blitz schemes at some point during the game if the offense was struggling to get into any sort of a rhythm. Anybody that saw the game on Saturday knew that that was the case when the offense was having their plays end extremely quickly because of blocking assignment errors.
Well, if that were to happen under Rocky’s calls, he would switch up his scheme midway through the scrimmage(s) to resemble a more traditional, straight up base defense to give the offense a chance to not have to worry about all the movement and build their confidence up a bit. But Danny Gonzales was calling plays during the scrimmage, and he did not do that. He was pretty relentless all game and Rocky was fine with it because it was a wake up call for the offense and the OL.
There are still a lot of reasons to be optimistic though. I still firmly believe that this starting unit will be a better pass blocking group than expected, especially compared to last season’s group. This group will not be as consistent run blocking, but how I felt about last year’s group as run blockers (I was extremely confident in them last fall and luckily they all stayed healthy) is how much potential I feel this OL group can show as pass blockers.
I don’t have many individual notes but I’m putting up the videos right now and just watch Quest Truxton and Miles Cheatum kill it during one one ones. Now that camp is coming to a close I’d name the the MVPs of camp based off their improvement and overall play this spring - no question.
The offense mainly focused on correcting mistakes they made during the scrimmage. The offensive line really worked on their footwork technique, the running backs did a bunch of cone drills to work on their quick cutting, and the quarterbacks worked on their timing with the tights and wide receivers, spending some extra time working on fade routes in the red zone.
To end practice, the entire offensive line worked on their kick slides and first step(s) by having every linemen lined up at one end zone along the goal line, facing the sideline, and practicing their kick slide going left on every five-yard maker until they reached the other goal line (20 reps). Once they reached the other goal line, they did the same thing going right (20 reps). I think it was designed to have them execute their technique well even as they got more and more tired. And to hammer in the idea that they need to slide their feet better and quicker.
When I asked Rocky if all these drills were related to the scrimmage he confirmed that was the point.
It was obvious that the offense didn’t play to the level that the coaches expected during the spring game so I asked him a bit about the obvious weakness: the OL. I’ll have a story up on it later about the reasons for their struggles and why there is a silver lining heading into next year. But the big point he made that I thought matched my feelings after the game was that when Rocky called the defensive plays in past scrimmages, he would let up from his crazy blitz schemes at some point during the game if the offense was struggling to get into any sort of a rhythm. Anybody that saw the game on Saturday knew that that was the case when the offense was having their plays end extremely quickly because of blocking assignment errors.
Well, if that were to happen under Rocky’s calls, he would switch up his scheme midway through the scrimmage(s) to resemble a more traditional, straight up base defense to give the offense a chance to not have to worry about all the movement and build their confidence up a bit. But Danny Gonzales was calling plays during the scrimmage, and he did not do that. He was pretty relentless all game and Rocky was fine with it because it was a wake up call for the offense and the OL.
There are still a lot of reasons to be optimistic though. I still firmly believe that this starting unit will be a better pass blocking group than expected, especially compared to last season’s group. This group will not be as consistent run blocking, but how I felt about last year’s group as run blockers (I was extremely confident in them last fall and luckily they all stayed healthy) is how much potential I feel this OL group can show as pass blockers.
I don’t have many individual notes but I’m putting up the videos right now and just watch Quest Truxton and Miles Cheatum kill it during one one ones. Now that camp is coming to a close I’d name the the MVPs of camp based off their improvement and overall play this spring - no question.
