Although Ethan Head has done a decent job as Tulane's placekicker since Jacob Barnes got injured at Oklahoma (aside from the extra point under the crossbar on his first attempt), hitting three of four field goals and 12 straight extra points, the Wave would be better off with a healthy Barnes, and that appears to be the case this week. Jon Sumrall said Barnes had performed 60 to 80 percent of his normal workload in practice this week and likely will be ready Saturday against UAB while stopping short of guaranteeing it. Barnes hit 54 of 68 field goals (79.4 percent) at Louisiana Tech and is 3 of 4 for Tulane, with his only miss the 50-yarder in which he got hurt. If he is close to 100 percent, he will be a more reliable option than Head, a true freshman out of Chicago who had no idea he would get a chance to kick field goals this year when he accepted a preferred walk-on offer.
I was dumbfounded Saturday when someone asked Darian Mensah after the USF game if he had become more comfortable throwing on the run as the year went along. It's been his best strength from the beginning, and he won the job by making a couple of incredible throws after scrambling to his left in a preseason scrimmage. He showed that ability again today on the first play of the 2-minute drill that ends Wednesday practices, drifting to his left to avoid pressure and throwing a strike to Bryce Bohanon near the sideline for a hefty gain. Bohanon barely got his feet in before running out of the bounds, and the big play led to a made field goal by Bobby Noel on the last play (the regular kickers do their work on Tuesday and Thursday). Mensah is really accurate on those throws, and it is a big part of his game.
Kam Hamilton moved back inside to defensive tackle for a portion of practice today, with Gerrod Henderson at end. Hamilton looked good in his first stint at end against South Florida, but if the coaches want to get their best combination on the field, a lineup while Adin Huntington is less than 100 percent, a lineup of Henderson, Hamilton, Patrick Jenkins and whoever wins the job at bandit (today it was Terrell Allen, who sat out against USF with a minor injury) makes sense at least some of the time. They have a lot of options up front, but not all of them have panned out through five games.
Sincere Haynesworth attended practice today. He still is hoping to catch on with an NFL team after being cut by the Saints and will do everything in his power to be ready if called by another team.
Sumrall, Head, Sam Howard and Josh Remetich spoke after practice today. I have transcribed the first three tonight.
SUMRALL
On Barnes status:
"I think he's going to be likely available. I'll know for sure tomorrow. He's kicked somewhere between 60 to 80 percent of his swing, but tomorrow was the day we're going to test."
On Head's performance:
"He has a real maturity about him, a confidence about him that's probably not normal. He's a very sure kid, and his kickoffs have gotten better as the year went. He and (Patrick) Durkin were going to split the kickoffs 50-50, but Durkin wasn't available, so Head's taken all of those (with 24 touchbacks in 25 kickoffs). The week that Jacob had the groin issue after the long field goal at Oklahoma, he got thrown into the fire and has done a nice job."
On Mike Storms, a former marine who is working as a coaching consultant for the team now, has a black belt and is a good friend of strength and conditioning coordinator Rusty Whitt (I knew nothing about him):
"Mike does a great job. Mike and Whitt both have military backgrounds. They've known each other forever. The day I got here on Dec. 10 or whatever day it was to meet the team for the first time, one of the first people I saw was Storms. I didn't know Storms at the time. He said, hey, your guy Whitt is one of my good friends. I'm like all right, cool, who the hell is this guy? He does a really good job with the D-line. He does a nice job with the O-line. He does some stuff with our runners, too, our quarterbacks, like how to take a fall. He's just a really thoughtful, detailed guy, has great energy. He's a train guy, he's a smart guy. The hand-to-hand combat stuff obviously correlates to our game. It helps that this game is about striking, it's about violence, it's about leverage, it's about angles, it's about where you're making contact. It's great to have him back. Nobody works for free. They had to go get a little bit of money for contract work to get him back available. I've been fighting to get it done since the summer, and it just took a little time to actually get it. You saw some of that positive effect of him being back around. He just brings great energy. He's just got a good vibe about him."
On his official role:
"He's just a consultant who really kind of works some in the weight room with Whitt, some out here with the guys doing hand-to-hand combat. He's been in the NFL training camps. He goes around. He's got miltiary background as a Marine, but he's got this hand-to-hand combat background that's really interesting. His specialization really brings a lot of value to our players. I enjoy watching him teach. It's fun to watch him just go through a progression of how he's teaching some things and really as much as anything, he's a great resource for our coaches on how to coach some leverage point things. He's awesome to have here. He's done different roles. He's not in a coaching role. He's more of a consultant. He's just able to kind of give another lens on maybe how to use your hands."
On teaching QBs how to fall:
"Yeah, the whiplash thing that quarterbacks get when they get hit a lot of times from their head getting hit from the back of the ground. I had him talk to our quarterbacks today about taking a hit and ducking your chin, so that when you hit you kind of fall to your shoulder or your side and your head's not hitting the ground. That's not a 100 percent. You can't always see the hit coming, but if you can get your chin tucked, usually you're going to absorb that contact better than if your head's up, gets knocked back and then you get thrown to the ground. He's been in combat. His whole career has been about that. There are some good lessons he can teach all of our position groups even though he works primarily with our O-line and D-line coaches on some hand-to-hand stuff."
On using nerf balls with scout-team offense (the center snaps a nerf ball, but the quarterback already has the football in his hand):
"Yeah, I do that on the scout-team offense. I might have started that when I was an assistant coach here or maybe when I was the defensive coordinator at the University of San Diego before I got here. I hate wasting a rep on a bad snap because of the scout-team center, and so we give him a nerf ball, let him throw the thing wherever he wants to, as far back as possible, and the quarterback already has the ball in his hand. That makes the drill go better. We do stuff like that on the kickoff return where the kicker kicks and the returner's already got the ball in hand, not for our kickoff return team but for our kickoff scout team. It's just another way to make practice more efficient. I hate wasting two minutes of a rep because we have a bad snap."
