The Huskies completed their 3rd week of practices this afternoon. There was a little rain as the practice began but then the sun poked through the clouds, Nirvana and Jimi Hendrix came through the speakers, and I became very thankful that I live in Seattle. There were about a thousand people at the practice including quite a few high school and junior college coaches who were attending the UW coaches clinic. I spotted Paul Wulff trying watching the coaches, trying to figure out how to coach his own players (that was a joke and completely false).
To tell you the truth, there wasn’t a lot to report today. During the team drills there was a lot of work on special teams. Most of the practice was pretty typical and then there was about a half an hour scrimmage at the end. The offense dominated early in the practice and then the defense had the upper hand in the scrimmage portion.
Nick Holt was even more animated than usual today. At one point he made the entire second string defense do up-downs after a 10 yard play by the offense. The coaching staff has to be in such great shape because they sprint everywhere. They really set the tone for this team.
The defense used a few different looks today. Alvin Logan rushed off the edge quite a bit in the scrimmage and was quite effective in doing so. He might be playing defensive end on 3rd downs this season. They rotated linebackers a lot more today than they usually do. I imagine they are just finding who is best where and when. They also went to a 3-4 at times today, it seemed to work pretty well.
At this point in spring everyone seems to be settling in on where they should be in the depth chart. Sure, every once in a while someone will bust out with a great practice but it’s usually the same suspects every practice now. It’s nice to see that consistency because I don’t know if there were players who would consistently have good practices on the Huskies a few years ago.
With that said here are my players of the day:
- Jermaine Kearse was great today. He scored 6 touchdowns in a row during drills. I think he ended up with about 10 on the day. The Huskies don’t have a corner who can defend him and I don’t know if anyone in the Pac-10 does.
- James Johnson also made some very good catches. He got called for two offensive pass interference penalties but one of them was extremely questionable. In the offenses only touchdown drive in the scrimmage, Johnson came up big several times. He is pretty physical and looks bigger than he did last Fall.
- Chris Robinson is a red-shirt defensive tackle who has played well all spring. He continued to do so today, getting into the backfield and making some tackles. I think him and Tyrone Duncan may have played themselves into the rotation for next season.
- Demetrius Bronson had a few very physical runs today. He may not carry the ball very often because he is switching between fullback and running back right now but, I think Bronson would be very good at the goal line as long as he takes care of his fumbling problems. With that being said, Polk and Cooper are/will be very good at the goal line also.
- The freshman running backs were good. I’m going to stop putting this in the practice reports and you can all assume that they were good. I can’t wait for my fellow good guys to see them in action and then say how excited they are about them. If they play like they’re capable of on April 30th people will be buzzing about Jesse Callier and Deontae Cooper through the whole summer.
Other guys were good too but you already knew that because their names are Jake Locker, Mason Foster, and Cort Dennison.
Two more weeks of practice to go. I like what I’ve seen overall but I’ll save that for another post. Now, it’s time to watch the Mariners and Justin Verlander (if the Mariners get shut down tonight, which is entirely possible, take a minute to enjoy how good Verlander is. He is the Tiger’s Felix. Should be fun to watch regardless of what happens). Thanks for reading!
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