Author Archives: Andrew Long

by | April 8, 2010 · 7:11 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/8/2010

Practice was moved in doors today because of the weird hail storms taking place.  Practice indoors is a kind of nice change, at least for the fans.   It’s a lot warmer in there but there isn’t as much space.  The coaches still make it work pretty well with the limited space.

Practice was interesting today.  Along with being inside, there were a ton of important people there.  We had our first Joe Montana sighting of the spring.  I admit, I was a little star struck when I ended up standing within a few feet of him and his wife.  Every time he walked by, I could hear the people around me start to whisper about him.  He wasn’t treated any differently than a normal fan, standing behind the rope and watching.  Along with Joe Montana I saw Dick Baird, Mark Emmert and Scott Woodward.  There seemed to be quite a few alumni there as well.  It didn’t stop with the celebrities though, there were about 15 recruits there.  I couldn’t place them all but most of them were from this years class. 

Zach Banner (2012 mega recruit) was there again and I overheard him say that his top 3 are UW, Oregon, and USC.  He took an unnoficial visit to Eugene last week and was really impressed with their campus and facilities.  He also raved about UW’s coaches, specifically Sark and the strength coach.  I heard all of this while he was talking to a couple of friends.  Banner 6-7, 295 lbs. and he’s only a sophomore in high school.  He will be one of the highest rated offensive line recruits in the county in a couple of years.

With all of these things going on it was a little bit hard to concentrate in practice.  Like Tuesdays practice, a lot of today was focused on 11 on 11 drills. 

The backup quarterbacks continue to grow every practice.  Nick Montana was the better of the backups on Tuesday but I think Price was better today.  In a two-minute 7-on-7 drill Price was very effective and completed all but one or two of his passes.  After watching a little closer this week, it might not be Price’s arm that hurts him, it might be his footwork.  He kind of bounces from right to left at times instead of looking fluid in his steps.  It’s obvious that he’s eager to learn and works hard.  Him and Montana ask a lot of questions to Jake and Nuss which is great to see.

The running game got going a little bit today.  It looked way more impressive than it did on Tuesday.  Fogerson was impressive today, he ran over some guys.  Callier had a nice run that he bounced outside for about 30 yards.  Cooper had the run of the day though.  The line opened up a huge hole for him and once he got into the secondary he showed off his speed.  Cooper took it into the end zone for about a 60 yard touchdown. 

Senio Kelememte is going to be great at tackle.  I think he’ll be the offensive lineman the Huskies have.  He’s really quick as a tackle and has pretty good size.  Moving him to tackle was definitely the right move by the coaching staff. 

Cameron Elisara continues to get a lot of reps at defensive end.  He looks pretty good there.  I worry a little bit about him having enough speed for that position.  Everyone knows he’s extremely strong but whether he has enough speed off the end has yet to be seen.

After watching these practices it seems that the Huskies will use a nickel defense a lot more this year (defense with 3 cornerbacks and 2 linebackers).  They hardly ever went to it with last year but I see it a lot in practice and it makes sense.  I never thought I’d say this but the Huskies best position may be cornerback (besides wide receiver).  They have 5 guys back there who I would feel fairly comfortable with starting in the secondary. 

Clarence Trent has given up football.  He was never really a factor in his 4 practices with the team but it was nice to have an extra body out there.  I hope he has an excellent basketball career.

Demetrius Bronson looked pretty good while playing some at fullback today.  I’d read that he’s up to 230 lbs. and I saw him throw some impressive blocks today.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved him to fullback permanently.  This will be an interesting story to watch through the rest of spring.

The Huskies are having a scrimmage on Saturday at noon.  It sounds like they’ll treat it as a real game and it should be fun to see who the coaches have in starting and such.  I’m really looking forward to seeing these guys in a game situation.  A few of the Good Guys should be there so leave a comment or something if you plan on going and we can talk sports with you! Or you could find Joe Montana and talk with him instead but I’m sure we’re much more exciting….

Thanks for reading!

Andrew

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by | April 6, 2010 · 7:28 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/6/2010

I learned my lesson after the first two days of practice that I attended, dress warm.  So today I made my way over to the U District, put my North Face on over my long sleeve shirt, put my jacket on over my north face, put my beanie and gloves on and then began my trek over to the stadium.  To my surprise, it was a little warmer today than it was last week.  The wind wasn’t blowing as hard and the sun even poked through once or twice.  It was easily the most enjoyable practice of the year so far.

I arrived about 45 minutes late because of a guitar lesson but I think I only missed some stretching and position drills.  On my way to my usual spot on the sideline I noticed De’Shon Matthews in the trainers tent with ice on his calf muscle.  He didn’t participate in the rest of practice but the injury doesn’t look extremely serious.  Needless to say, the Huskies don’t need another defensive end hurt.  Hopefully, Matthews will be back soon.  Jordan Polk and Cody Bruns also did not participate in practice.  Polk is nursing a minor hamstring injury and no one seems to know why Bruns sat out.

Today was the teams first day in full pads.  This made for a chippy practice where the offensive and defensive guys really got after each other.  When a team gets to start tackling it’s pretty normal to see shoving matches start.  All of these were stopped right away but it showed a little fire from a team that was so lifeless a few years ago. 

A lot of the day was devoted to 11 on 11 scrimmaging.  Most of the day saw the defense dominate the running game and the offense dominate the passing game. 

There were a few changes in the lineup.  Anthony Boyles and Quinton Richardson were the cornerbacks for the starting unit.  Adam Long ran with the second team.  This is somewhat surprising from an outsider’s perspective but after watching 3 of the first 4 practices it seems pretty clear that Boyles and Richardson are playing at the highest level right now.  Vonzell McDowell also played as a nickel back with the first team defense at times.  Desmond Trufant is not participating in contact drills this spring.

Victor Aiyewa (who’s not allowed in too much contact either) and Alvin Logan are rotating at the strong-side linebacker spot.  I think either of these guys will be just fine at this position.  Logan appears to be very quick around the edge on defense and seems to blitz quite a bit.  I don’t think this position will be decided until just before the season starts.

The defensive line did quite a bit of rotating today.  It was hard to get a read on who the starters are but it looks as if Tyrone Duncan has worked his way into some playing time.  They also tried Cameron Elisara out at defensive end a few times today.

I don’t know if it means everything but Deontae Cooper was always the first person to get a carry in the 11 on 11 sessions.  All the running backs rotated almost every play so I wouldn’t look too much into this.  Cooper did look like the best out of the four running backs (Cooper, Callier, Fogerson, and Bronson) today.

Nick Montana looked like the best option as backup quarterback today.  This was easily his best day of practice.  Even if you weren’t watching it’s easy to tell when Montana throws a nice pass because the couple hundred  people watching generally get very excited.  Montana had a couple of those throws today, he was pretty impressive.

The play of the day goes to Jake.  A rush came from Jake’s right and he scrambled hard to his left.  Aguilar broke free from coverage and Locker threw a 50 yard completion that would’ve gone for a touchdown if they let it play out.  What was impressive is that Jake threw this 50 yard pass across his body while on the run.  I was standing by a reporter who said, “I don’t know if any other quarterback in the nation could do that.”  I have to agree.  I’ve seen Jake do some amazing things but that one might have topped the list.

My players of the day after the jump! Continue reading →

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by | April 6, 2010 · 12:46 am

Game Recap — 4/5/2010

Thank God that baseball is back.  Halfway through the game I was sitting on the couch with my brother, each of us sipping a Mexican Coke and enjoying a baseball game.  There are times in life when you know you’re at the right place and that was one of those times.  I can’t remember the last time I was able to watch opening day with my brother and, in a life where it’s vital to cherish the little things, this was one small event that I am very grateful for.

On to the recap.  The Mariners were in control for most of this game.  They played like they will for most of the year: solid pitching, good defense, and tacking on a run here and there.  For most of this game the pitching was more than solid.  Felix’s line isn’t extremely pretty but take away some bad pitches from Sean White and it would be much better.  (More on Sean White later.)  Felix was still dominating, his control just wasn’t quite where it needed to be.  He got a ridiculous amount of ground ball outs, it’s hard to remember a fly ball.  As for his control, I’m not too worried.  The umpire tonight was bad (apparently he didn’t know what  low strike was) and Felix got a little tired in the later innings.  As the King gets stretched out more and more, his command will get better.  In the 6th and 7th innings he started leaving the ball up in the zone, this is what pitchers do when they’re tired, but for the most part he missed down in the zone.  This is a good sign and will be vital against Texas next time out.

The end of Felix’s outing brought us to Sean White.  Let me just say that I’m not a Sean White fan.  He benefited from a good deal of luck last year, his FIP was 2 runs higher than his ERA.  Wak doesn’t feel the same as I do about Sean White though and therefore he put him in after Felix.  I would’ve put in League, Lowe, or maybe even Sean Kelley but that didn’t happen.  Maybe White will prove me, and other skeptics, wrong this year but if he doesn’t I’ll be anxious to see what Wak does with him in the bullpen.  Thankfully, we won this game so I don’t have to be too upset with Sean White but if he keeps costing Felix wins I will get angrier.  For now, he’s okay.

As for the other two pitchers, I was impressed.  League was what I expected.  After that Jack Wilson error I got a little nervous but he produced another ground ball that turned into a double play.  I’m excited to see League throughout this year.  Aardsma did what he did last year.  I’ve always been on the fence about Aardsma but I do like that he comes right after hitters.  He was good tonight.

The offense tonight was about what I expect for the season.  Score a run here, score a run there and then what do you know, we end up with 5 runs in a game.  This team is way more patient than last years.  I’m pretty sure we matched the amount of walks we had last year in one game (sarcasm).  It will be nice to see Figgins, Kotchman, Bradley paired with Griffey give this team a patient approach. 

The stolen bases were fun and something I expect to see a lot of.  Speed is an underrated aspect of baseball and speed is something we have. 

Hero: Casey Kotchman. He was awesome tonight. I’m a Kotchman believer and one of the few who seem to think he will produce at a higher level this year. I like him batting third in the order and am excited to see what he can do this year. The fact that he got 4 RBI and a game winning hit in his first Mariner game is pretty cool.

Goat: Sean White. I didn’t understand White being the first reliever to pitch this year, especially considering it was the 7th inning and he was entering a jam. Everyone knows how lucky White got last year on balls in play, and his inability to strike guys out scares me. Tonight’s performance confirmed my fears of White this year.

A few more quick notes after the jump. Continue reading →

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by | April 5, 2010 · 10:35 am

Sports as National Holidays

Some days in sports are cause for celebration, today being one of them.  I’m beginning to think that we sell these days short and they should become national holidays.  Here are a few days that need to be celebrated to the fullest extent (by fullest extent I mean that there should be no school or work on those days).

  • The first 2 days of March Madness–  This is a must.  I already skip classes on these days and know many friends who do the same.  There are basketball games from 9 am to 10 pm on these first 2 days and there are usually some fantastic matchups.  As if that wasn’t enough to get these days off, people are even more invested because of the brackets they filled out.  These two days are awesome and this should be a no-brainer. 
  • Opening Day (baseball)-  I’ve waited through a month of spring training to get to this day and here I am stuck at school.  It’d be great to be sitting on the couch right now, with some chips and salsa, watching two irrelevant teams play baseball.  Instead, I’ll drive over to good ol’ Maple Valley tonight and catch the Mariners game and maybe half of another one.  I know some people get bored watching baseball all day and I willingly admit that the Opening Day Holiday does not have as much zest as The March Madness Holidays but you wouldn’t be forced to watch sports on these days.  Are you forced to do labor on Labor Day?  Do you hang up pictures of Honest Abe and sing songs about him on Presidents Day?  You wouldn’t have to watch baseball.  But, for the sake of us baseball diehards, this day should be a national holiday.  (Not to mention Opening Day is the same day as the National Championship this year.  Which leads me to say, if you’re a Butler fan and you’re working today, for goodness sakes stop!  Butler’s in the national championship, stop working.)
  • National Signing Day (college football)-  This is a stretch but I really enjoy this day.  I feel that it’s vastly under-rated and not many people know about it.  If everyone became well-educated about this day they’d realize it’s importance.  Unfortunately, this one isn’t too exciting to watch but it’s fun to keep track of online.
  • Thursday and Friday of the Masters-  I know that golf can be boring.  I know that some of you would rather work than watch golf on TV.  But I know my dad would love to have these two days off to watch golf.  Therefore, it should be a national holiday.

Well, there are more but I don’t want to make this argument seem too ridiculous so I’ll stop here.  If this does become law the Good Guys’ call dibs on naming these holidays.  We wouldn’t let it be something boring like “The First Two Days of March Madness.”  We’d make it way cooler than that. 

Anyway, Happy Opening day my friends.  This is a day to be celebrated and the start of a season to remember (I hope).  Go Mariners!

Andrew

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by | April 3, 2010 · 10:56 pm

Saturday Night Notes

Just a few links and notes that I wanted to post tonight.  I will do this by using bullet points because I find bullet points useful.  (I often wonder how some things get their name.  Why table or chair?  Sometimes these names come from other languages.  But, it always cracks me up when titles are very logical.  I can picture the guy who made the first bullet point thinking, “What should I call that?”  His mind then wanders to what objects the bullet point looks like.  He thinks, “Well, that little black dot looks a lot like a bullet and it’s pointing out what I have to say.”  Leaping from his chair he (or she) exclaims, “I’ll call it a bullet point!”  I’m sorry if you read this.  Really sorry.)

  • Milton Bradley left todays game with tightness in his right quad.  I was watching when this happened and it really didn’t seem too serious.  I hope it’s not because losing him for the month of April might be worse than losing Cliff Lee.
  • I couldn’t make it to the Huskies 3rd spring practice today because I was at home in Yakima.  Here’s a link to Bob Condotta’s report.  The most serious thing of note seemed to be a few minor hamstring injuries to Jordan Polk and D’Andre Goodwin.  Neither injury sound too serious but hamstring injuries can stick around sometimes. 
  • Go Butler!  The final four wasn’t/isn’t very exciting to me this year but I’d like to see Butler win for two reasons.  One being that they are Butler and a cool underdog.  The other reason being that they’re playing Duke. 
  • This coming week might be the best week of the year in sports.  Baseball starts Sunday with the Yankees and Red Sox, the Mariners open their season on Monday, the national championship is on Monday, and the Masters start on Thursday.  Not to mention Husky spring practice continues.  It’s a very good week to be a sports fan.
  • With the Mariners starting this week the blog may start to look a little different.  We plan on doing game recaps after each game.  So, combine those with the Husky practice reports and you have a good amount of posts.  I’m sure we’ll post other things besides this but expect to see lots of those.
  • Lots of good stuff leading up to the Mariners first game.  Lookout Landing has some great looks at our division rivals.  USS Mariner has this great look at the Mariners lineup.  Seattle Sports Insider also has lots of Mariner coverage leading up to opening day.  I could link Geoff Baker’s post about how he thinks the Mariners are no better than a 3rd place team right now or I could link his post about how Edgar shouldn’t be in the hall of fame or I could link one of his numerous posts about Canada or I could link his post about all of his sources telling him that the Mariners were going hard after Jason Bay even though USSMariner basically proved it wasn’t true.  I could link these but I didn’t agree with any of them and Baker drives me crazy.  I will end this rant now.

Thanks for reading, as always! Happy Easter.

Andrew

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by | April 2, 2010 · 4:13 pm

Calm Down Mariner Fans

I’m so glad March is over.  When it comes to baseball, March always feels really long but this one was particularly long.  Over the past four weeks it seems all we’ve had is bad news:  Cliff Lee got hurt, Jack Hannahan got hurt, no one in the back-end of the rotation had a great spring, the offense was pretty sucky, having Mike Sweeney on the team will single handedly ruin the Mariners playoff chances, and Milton Bradley will obviously explode and kill someone this year.  All of a sudden, the best off season in team history turned into a spring training filled with doom and gloom.  I want to tell all of you one thing, it’s going to be okay!

Here are a few reasons why:

  • The offense will not be worse than last year.  I would bet any of you a lot of money that the Mariners will score more runs this year than last.  All projections I’ve seen have Seattle scoring about 50 more runs than last year, if not more.  I’m not saying the offense will be good, I’m saying that the offense was absolutely terrible last year and the Mariners still had a winning record.  This team can still be good even with a bad offense.  (As I wrote this Chone Figgins hit a home run.  This is a minor miracle.  Seriously.)
  • I’ll keep the comparison to last year going.  Let me remind you that Ichiro was on the DL at the beginning of last year.  I think Ichiro missed a total of 8 games last year.  Over the course of those games the Mariners had a 6-2 record.  Ichiro is the Mariners best player but somehow the Mariners had a winning record when he was gone.  I hope you’re following me here.  Losing Cliff Lee for about a month will hurt.  Over that month he probably would have picked up 5 or 6 starts; instead of watching Lee we’ll be watching Doug Fister which makes this injury hurt more.  But the Mariners excelled in 8 games without their star last year, I think they can survive 5 games without Lee.  I could be wrong but I think this injury has been blown way out of proportion because there’s nothing else to talk about.
  • I admit the back end of this rotation scares me.  These guys aren’t sexy names by any means and they haven’t had the best spring training.  But, this rotation is almost identical to the one that pitched through August and September (minus a frustrating Brandon Morrow and add a frustrating Jason Vargas).  Through that time period the Mariners had a record of 33-26.  Most experts feel that if the Mariners are around .500 by the time Lee and Bedard (hopefully) come back.  As they showed last year, .500 could happen quite easilyin April.
  • Another reason that a .500 record could be easily accomplished is because of the schedule.  The Mariners playOakland (7 times), Texas (3 times), the White Sox (3), the Royals(3), the Tigers(3), and Baltimore (3)  from the start of the season until April 28th.  Those teams were a combined 456-523 last year.  During that same period the Angels play teams with a combined 491-483 last year ( including the Yankees six times and the Twins four times) and the Rangers play teams with a combined 509-464 record (including the Yankees and the Red Sox).  The schedule certainly favors the Mariners while Cliff Lee is expected to be out. 
  • April baseball can be weird.  Some bad teams start out hot and some good teams start out cold.  It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen in April and you’d much rather have injuries in your team in April than you would in September. 

I believe the Mariners are a better team than last years team that went 85-77.  I know, that team overachieved based on numbers but what those numbers don’t say is that the Mariners are built for close games.  There may have been a little bit of luck with the 1-run game record last year but I think it has just as much to do with the defense than it does with luck. 

So, don’t panic.  Sure, it was a March to forget for the Mariners but it’s not as bad as everyones making it seem.  Writers don’t have anything good to write about during spring training so problems are magnified.  But March is over and real baseball is about to begin.  Despite the problems this spring, it very well could be a summer to remember in Seattle.

Andrew

(If the Mariners come out and are truly awful you can blame me.  If that happens we should try to forget that this post ever happened.)

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by | April 1, 2010 · 10:53 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/1/10

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to the practice report sooner because I drove home to Yakima right after practice concluded.  It was another chilly day at Montlake today but the place was hoppin’!  There were softball and baseball games going on, those combined with the open practice made for a fun environment of about 3,000 people.  The team practiced without pads again today so it’s a little hard to get a read on who had a good day and who had a bad day.  They will get into pads and start tackling next week.

Sark seemed a little more animated today than he did on Tuesday (not that he wasn’t animated on Tuesday, just more so today).  He was getting after players when mistakes happened and shouting praise after good plays.  This coaching staff is extremely fun to watch; they’re almost as entertaining as watching the players sometimes.  If the team is lacking energy the coaching staff brings it.  I spent quite a bit of time watching the secondary coach, Demetrice Martin, and the running back coach, Joel Thomas.  These are two guys who move around as much as their players do.  Martin sticks up for his defensive backs and it’s easy to see that the players really enjoy him.

One of the stories of spring practice is the backup quarterback position battle.  The backup probably won’t be decided until Fall but it’d be nice if one or both of these guys had an amazing spring.  They both struggled at times today.  Montana threw some very good passes in the scrimmage session but during drills he threw 3 interceptions in a row.  Price is inconsistent and I don’t know if his arm will ever be something we can count on.  If the season started tomorrow I’d be worried.  Fortunately, it doesn’t and we have two of the best quarterback coaches in the country (Sark and Nuss) and one of the best quarterbacks in the country for these guys to learn from.  They are both trying to learn at every point; they are interacting with Locker in every opportunity they can and I saw both of them talking to Tui many times.  (Speaking of Tui, the quarterbacks were going through the routes and progressions with Nussmeier early in the practice and throwing the passes to Marques.  It was pretty cool to see.)

As if Locker wasn’t already a great leader, it’s obvious that he’s making even more of an effort this year.  It’s hard to explain just how much he interacts with the guys while trying to make himself better but it’s impressive to see.  I’m going to devote one of these practices to just watching him and will do a post on that. 

So, who had a good day today?  As I already mentioned it’s somewhat hard to tell without full contact but here are a few guys I came away impressed with:

  • Anthony Boyles.  Again.  I’m trying to not get too excited about him but it’s already getting difficult.  There were several times where I thought, “Wow, I need to text the fellow good guys to tell them how great Boyles looks.”  I’m not the only one who’s noticing either.  Jermaine Kearse, Devin Aguilar, and Jake Locker seem to be taking notice.  Boyles enjoys a little friendly trash talking after he or his fellow cornerbacks make a play.  Kearse doesn’t seem to enjoy that too much so after Boyles dominated for a while Kearse decided he would only go against A.B.  (that’s what the players call him, I figure the Good Guys might as well too.)  Kearse had his way a few times but Boyles held his own.  By my count, between drills and little scrimmages, Boyles had 3 pass breakups and an interception.  He got beat once by Kearse and heard about that from Locker and Kearse.  When he has those two talking trash to him about a completion I think that shows that he’s becoming a playmaker in the secondary.  (If you make it to a practice watch Boyles and Vonzell McDowell, they’re hilarious when they get going and extremely entertaining.)
  • Semisi Tokolahi.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to pronounce this guys name.  Tokolahi is a defensive tackle and it’s really hard to judge lineman when they aren’t blocking with all their effort.  Despite this Tokolahi has impressed the coaches enough to rotate with the other 1st defensive tackles (Alameda Ta’amu and Cameron Elisara).  Today he had a pass deflection and got in the backfield a few times.  He’s a big strong guy who could do a good job plugging up the middle of the defense.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tokolahi play himself into some playing time.
  • Jermaine Kearse.  Just get used to seeing his name on these lists.
  • Jake Locker.  Same as Kearse.
  • The entire secondary.  I already singled out Boyles for his good play but this entire secondary was pretty impressive today.  Especially during drills.  I really think we’ll see a lot more man-to-man defense this year.
  • Jesse Callier.  I forgot to mention him on Tuesday.  Him and Cooper are the two new freshmen running backs and both look like they could be Polk’s backup. 

Nothing really anything bad to report.  Sure there were some inconsistencies in the backup quarterbacks, a few dropped passes, a fumble or two, and some mixed up assignments but it’s the second day of spring practice and those problems are normal.

Cody Bruns appears to be the holder for the team.  The kicking was pretty bad today but I’m going to blame that on the wind and some bad holds.  I don’t think we need to worry about Erik Folk.

The punt-returners today were Deontae Cooper, Jesse Callier, Devin Aguilar, Jordan Polk and Johri Fogerson (I may have missed someone here).  My early money is on Cooper but I think any of these guys would be just fine returning kicks and/or punts.

One last practice note is that 2011 recruit WR Kasen Williams and 2012 recruit OL Zach Banner were at practice today.  Banner was standing on the field most of the day and is huge.  He was bigger than some of the Husky offensive lineman.  Williams was a little harder to find and wasn’t as involved in watching the practice as Banner was.  Williams is considered one of the best receiver recruits in the country and Banner is a lineman that the Huskies would love to get.

Well, that’s about it for today.  I write more words than I think I will on these.  As Dan noted earlier, this is our 100th post!  It’s a little bit of a shame that the 100th post is this lame but I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading.  This blog has been so much fun for me and I’m fairly sure the other Good Guys agree.  We look forward to keep writing to whatever audience is out there and we’re honored that you choose to read posts that we write.  As our friends over on Montlake Madness say, thanks for coming!

Andrew

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by | March 30, 2010 · 7:23 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 3/30/10

The first spring practice of the year was held at Husky Stadium today on a windy, cold spring day.   It was fun walking up to the stadium; the baseball team was starting a game, the softball team was practicing (I only hope Danielle Lawrie saw me and fell in love at first sight) and there were a couple hundred people watching practice.  There was a good amount of energy in the air and the players seemed happy to be on the field.  The team wasn’t in pads yet and won’t be until next week.

I remember coming to the first spring practice last year and being blown away by the amount of energy the coaches brought.  Today was no different.  On numerous occasions I watched coaches sprint 20 or 30 yards to a player to either tell them what they did wrong or to give them praise for a good play.  I was also impressed by the amount of time the staff puts into one-on-one  coaching.  From Jake Locker to Clarence Trent, the coaches give a good amount of effort to get their point across to each player in one way or another.

I was watching the quarterbacks for a good share of the time today and it was about what I expected.  Jake Locker looked good, Keith Price and Nick Montana had some good moments but also had some shaky moments.  The wind gusts blowing off the lake often affected their deep passes.  My first impression of Nick Montana is that he has a good arm but is very skinny.  He threw some very good balls and will improve as he becomes more comfortable with the speed of practice.  Keith Price is an amazing athlete and if he ever develops into a good passer he could become quite the threat at quarterback.  Right now he reminds me of Dennis Dixon in his first few years at Oregon.

Alvin Logan was the starting strongside linebacker, as expected.  He rushed off the edge many times and looked very quick doing it.   The news of the day was Clarence Trent (UW basketball player) walking on to the football team as a defensive end.  Nick Holt coached him up numerous times and although Trent looked lost at times, he seems to have some raw talent.  For whatever it’s worth, he’s the tallest player on the defense and probably the team.

Greg Christine appears to be the backup center behind Drew Shaeffer.  I thought this was interesting at first because he was a starting guard last year but the more I think about it the more it makes sense.  Who else do the Huskies have to put there?  Christine seems like the best option as a backup and it’s good to have him understand both spots. 

A few more notes after the jump on players who had a good day.  Continue reading →

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