Ahlibobwa’s Practice Musings 4-11
Music: ‘Life is a highway’ —Rascal Flats
‘Start me Up’ -Rolling Stones
‘Life in the fast lane’ -the eagles ‘
Jerry was a race car driver’ -Primus ‘Intergalactic’ -The Beastie Boys
‘Body Movin’ -The Beastie Boys
Some kind of acid jazz that Shazam couldn’t identify Industrial sounds mixed in with ‘Jump around’ by House of Pain.
Industrial sounds mixed with pigs squealing A bunch of fight songs
‘Under Pressure’ —Queen
‘The Distance’ —Cake
‘Highway to Hell’ —AC/DC
Practice started at 4:26 pm sharp So, today the practice was inside which meant a lot of times there were enormous football players blocking my view of the action. I did my best to see as much as possible, but it was tougher to see later in the practice. As usual I will give my ‘play by play’ of practice followed by larger scale thoughts at the end.
Darius Taylor and Daniel Jackson both participated in practice, but were entirely held out of the competitive portions of practice. Was nice to see Jackson out there after he was injured last open practice. Offense ran through plays half-speed against a skeleton D.
First play featured motion. On pass plays the QB points at the receiver rather than throw it. Defense also ran sets half-speed against a skeleton O.
Saw Heather on my way in. She was power walking on a mission.
Caroll at guard to start with. Lewis at Tackle Showed a single wing look with Lemeke Brockington as the QB. So that’s interesting.
Harbaugh coaching the Oline and whole offense hard, yelling at the top of his lungs right from the start of practice.
Fleck was as animated today as I’ve seen him in awhile. He was on fire, ‘Play the situation’ ‘Attitude’ Fleck stops the offense before the snap as things were out of sorts. When they reset they did a pre-snap shift. Maybe we see more pre-snap shifts and motion this year? TE Pierce Walsh and DE Anthony Smith showing off the abs. In the goal line they worked on some QB under center looks. Fleck yelling so loudly it’s almost unintelligible. I caught ‘row the boat’ and not much else. Lined up O against D and did the first few steps of each play.
Showing some pre-snap motion with Darius Taylor which is interesting.
Team then split into position groups to do different drills. Punt returners: Lemeke, Darius, Kristen Hoskins, Jackson, Redding
Drill: RBs have to drop to the ground, get up, then take on 2 medicine balls one by one, then sprint and take on a tackling dummy Then most of the rest did calisthenics while some of the OL and QBs and Lemeke worked on snaps before they all rejoined the team for more calisthenics. Worked on some gets offs during this section. It’s just warmups but I’m already impressed by Lindenberg.
Team: Fleck, ‘tempo’s tag’ First play was supposed to be a screen but the D was ready and Brosmer grounded it. Bangura got most of the carries with the ones today as fleck knows what Darius can do. Brosmer’s first pass was really solid.
Then Fleck counted down from ten while the kick unit ran out on the field to beat the clock and Kesich made the kick.
Lindsey first pass a fade to Redding that was complete, thrown well but the DB fell down. Kesich made all the kicks I saw him take until he missed a 60 yard attempt. I think it had enough leg—just a little wide. Players kind of got in the way at times so it was tough to see everything.
Logan Richter looks like an absolute load up close Team broke into drills again. OL blocking working on coming out low under an overhang so they get used to coming out low and not being too upright.
WRs working on releases
Corners working on backpedaling against a WR.
Brosmer accurate early. It’s just drills but he looks good. Saw Lindsey miss one throw during drills, but he throws a nice ball most of the time. Brosmer good velocity on the seam route! He’s got good zip on the ball.
Heather asking Chernoff about some stuff. She’s rocking all black today. Great throw Brosmer to Lemeke on a post corner but Brockington dropped it. Brosmer perfect post corner to Spencer then again to Lemeke and Brockington caught this one.
Safeties working on breaking on the ball and picking it off Team: Got a little chippy between the OL and DL briefly. Working on running plays. Bangura had a couple nice runs.
7 on 7 team with four things rigged up to represent the DLine interfering with passing lanes Brosmer to Spencer first pass was a great catch! Spencer looked fluid catching and turning it upfield Brosmer forced to check down to Hayes on a crossing route. Good decision not forcing it into coverage. Defense throwing out different coverages to try to confuse Brosmer.
So far he’s dealing with it well. 3rd down nobody open and fleck says ‘great job D’ as Brosmer tucks and runs. Lindsey to Walsh amazing catch as it was too high. Lindsey then accidentally hit one of the fake DLs. Lindsey clearly still learning as he’s had his issues early in practice.
Punt team vs. skeleton return team working on corner kicks. Crawford reasonably good on his second pin them deep punt. Team: red zone Screen that the D was ready for Brosmer throws it away.
False start Philip Daniels he got pulled out to talk to fleck after the false start Four person pass pattern. Nobody open so Brosmer throws it away.
Good blocking up the middle and Nubin runs for 6.
Brosmer to Spencer bad drop by Spencer on a simple flat route.
Lindsey endzone crossing route broken up by Evan Redding. Gophers run a WR jet sweep that doesn’t go anywhere.
Hoskins and Spencer taking reps in full team punt return Hoskins with a dynamic punt return! His cutback speed was impressive. Dude went sideline to sideline outrunning the defense the whole way. I really wanna see Hoskins win the PR and KR jobs. He’s electric.
Team: Fleck, ‘thud swarm’ Brosmer check down for 2 yards . Striggow nice ‘tackle’ on a run Great throw from Brosmer to an open Spencer who drops it. Spencer really needs to hold onto the ball. Brosmer nice throw and catch on a hitch but I couldn’t see the receiver Brosmer to a TE in stride Brosmer makes something out of nothing but Frank Bierman drops it. Too many drops today so far. Rhyland kelly nice coverage breaking up a Drake Lindsey pass. Lots of run plays which are hard to judge When you’re not tackling.
Spencer amazing catch in punt coverage over his outside shoulder! Incredible play in stride. Was an incredible catch.
Team: swing route to Bangura Fleck, ‘you don’t have to cut everything back inside, Sieh’ Brosmer good outlet to his TE for a first down. Brosmer miscommunication misses a throw to Bangura Lindenberg great breakup on a hitch route! Ethan robinson great breakup on a throw to Lanier. Offense moving now with two consecutive hitch routes caught by TEs. Offense gives up a sack .
Ethan Robinson nice interception. Brosmer didn’t see him sneak into underneath zone coverage. Brosmer for sure thought he was throwing into man coverage. Defense disguising looks at times to challenge the offense.
Bomb fade from Lindsey to Hoskins! That was a fantastic throw and catch. Then there should have been a TD on the seam route from Lindsey but Hoskins dropped it
Good throw Brosmer to Spencer but it was broken up by a nice break on the ball by either Bryson or Brown.
Anthony Smith coverage sack Brosmer deep cross to Lemeke! Nice. Brosmer crossing route broken up. DBs are sitting on routes on the goal line as they know all the offense’s tricks. Drake Lindsey nice wide screen pass to Nubin. Blocked beautifully.
This new drill was once again O vs. D but only the first few steps of each rep. Individual drills. Both the TEs and WRs working on box out drills to catch jump balls. QBs working on footwork into passes. OLine blocking dummies held by other OLs. RBs working on running through contact. DBs working on setting edges End of practice finished with clapping while everybody lined up to do a handshake line.
Post practice Fleck with a rousing speech: ‘Everything you do has to be really important to you. We can’t raise the floor if you’re not important to yourself…defense offense and special teams. We gotta get better. ‘
Overheard a practice watcher asking a student assistant about how things are going. He said it was a slow start to the spring with the injuries, but that ‘they would get where they need to be’.
Thoughts: Brosmer has total command of the offense and I noticed a lot of zip on his balls today. He was locked in and outside of that admittedly bad pick he threw, he had a good day. Brosmer made good decisions and was accurate. Lindsey has so much potential. He throws a great ball. He threw some absolute dimes during the team portions of practice. But he also misses some easy throws too. He’s definitely a frosh. A frosh with a bright future, but a frosh nonetheless. PJ will absolutely need another QB to be the backup this fall. Lindsey needs at least a year to learn before he gets thrown into the fire.
WR: Lemeke looks really good. I liked what I saw from him today. Was super exciting to see him taking single wing snaps as well. That’s not a place he’s been used in the past. Spencer was up and down. He made some really nice catches but also had multiple easy drops. His punt coverage over the shoulder catch was an absolute thing of beauty. Now, I’ve gotta see him consistently make the easy catches. We need him to step up and be consistent. He’s got so much potential. With Jackson sitting out the scrimmage and multiple receivers out hurt, often the other receivers were blanketed by our DBs.
TE: Pierce Walsh looked really good. He caught a really tough pass from Lindsey that was way high. And he managed to catch it and continue running in stride. Impressive stuff. Frank Bierman missed an easy catch at one point. Big takeaway is that we have a quick passing offense, and it utilizes the TEs and RBs. This is really exciting as a quick passing game is something we haven’t really had at Minnesota since Mike Dunbar was OC. I liked seeing all the variations of hitch routes and other short routes.
If today was any indication, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more pre-snap shifts and motions this fall.
RB: Sieh Bangura looked really good today. I don’t think there’s gonna be any keeping him off the field. Dude is fluid as hell and I like his running style. He also looked good catching passes out of the backfield. I think Bangura is making a strong case to get carries come fall. That would be good as it would take pressure off of Darius.
The Gophers showed a fair amount of QB under center stuff, particularly in the red zone. I like to see that as I think it’s easier to play short yardage power football from under center. I like our DBs. They were on point. Ethan Robinson looks like a portal ‘hit’. Thought our safeties played really well. Cody Lindenberg looks like an all-American to me. Was so fun watching him back out there doing his thing.
I know I’ve said this before, but it’s just night and day looking at our size/athleticism now compared to where we were during the Brewster and Kill years. We look like a legit Big Ten football team and that’s always exciting to say.
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