Tulane's final regular practice of the spring was one of the least productive for the offense, with the defense dominating the 11-on-11 session at the end of the workout. At one point, Jonathan Banks got chewed out by offensive coordinator/QB coach Doug Ruse for not making the proper read, but it was really the offensive line that struggled the most. As always, it is hard to judge when they are not tackling, but Willie Fritz agreed the defensive front had its way.
"We still have to get firm in our protection," he said. "It looked like the defense today got some good push on pass plays, whereas the last scrimmage we did, the offense really did a good job of setting a good, clean pocket for the quarterbacks. Hopefully we'll get that on some occasions. The problem when you scrimmage each other is one side of the ball does good and the other side does bad, so that's not always what you want to have. I'd like to get in some clean pockets where you can really see the guy go through his progressions instead of running for his life."
Fritz wasn't exactly panicking, though. His overall assessment of the day was positive.
"It was good," he said. "We got a lot of stuff done. We're still inserting some plays offensively, and then defensively we worked on a new coverage in front here today. We got some good work in the special teams early, so it was a very productive practice."
Several players sat out with injuries: among them were offensive lineman John Washington, running back Miles Strickland, offensive lineman Brian Webb, defensive end Daren Williams, cornerback Thakarius Keyes, walk-on defensive back Sam Davis and cornerback Tre Jackson. To me, Jackson's is the most concerning. I will get an update on him either tomorrow or in the post-spring press conference next week, but his body language has not looked good as he sat out the last two practices. He's walking OK, but remember, Fritz said he had been concerned about Jackson's future in December and January because his knee was not coming around from a devastating injury in his senior year of high school. Hopefully it's just precautionary rest.
Keyes, who is being held out for the entire spring to protect his right knee, simulated some defensive reps in individual drills, running pretty well with a brace on the knee.
Quinlan Carroll is being double-trained at linebacker and end. Midway through Thursday's practice, he raced off the field and went out of the stadium after working with the linebackers. I followed him to the outside practice field, and sure enough, he was getting reps at end. The other guy in that boat is Luke Jackson, although I did not see him get any reps with the D-line on Thursday.
When they had 7-on-7 work, the first-team defend was Rae Juan Marbley and Zach Harris at linebacker, Taris Shenall and Roderic Teamer at safety, Parry Nickerson and P.J. Hall (in a red no-contact jersey) at cornerback and Jarrod Franklin at nickel. The second-team D was Carroll and Lawrence Graham at LB, Sean and Will Harper at safety, Eric Lewis and John Helow at cornerback (due to the guy sitting out) and Chase Napoleon at nickel. Napoleon, who has spent some time at linebacker this spring after coming in as a DB, struggled mightily in pass coverage, getting toasted by Darnell Mooney.
In his first 7-on-7 session, Banks overthrew Jabril Clewis deep, hit Devin Glenn inside and threw a late sideline pass that Harris almost intercepted. Later, he completed a slant to D.J. Owens but threw it behind him, forcing him to slow down and lose his momentum.
Johnathan Brantley, who has gone in second the last two practices, connected with Jacob Robertson deep and threw to Mooney on the play where Napoleon was left in the dust. Later, Brantley was less sharp, throwing a sideline pass to no one and having another one glance off Mooney's hands after he ran out of bounds to catch up with it.
Cuiellette, working with the last receivers, hit Rocky Ferony for a decent gain but was mainly in checkdown mode, throwing in the flat to Dontrell Hilliard and for a very short gain to Glenn.
It was a really good day for Glenn, who got some time with the first unit and caught more passes than any other receiver. I did not notice him much earlier in the spring, but Fritz did, and Glenn has closed spring ball strong. He could be a factor in the fall. After catching a pass from Banks on an out route, one of his teammates yelled, "Good job, Jet."
"He kind of had a little spurt in there where he had a difficult time catching the ball, but boy, at the beginning of the spring he was great, and he was good there towards the end," Fritz said. "He's probably the smallest guy on our team and he may be one of the toughest guys we've got on our team. He is tough. He's great in the kicking game for us, and he's a really good blocker out on the perimeter for being a buck-50, a buck-55, whatever he is. He has great speed and he has great toughness. That's what makes him a very effective player for us."
Near the end of the 7-on-7 drill, Nickerson leaped to deflect a deep pass but landed awkwardly and started favoring his left knee. He walked to the sideline, talked to a trainer and sat out the rest of the practice, applying ice to the knee for a good while.
The tackling drill for the linebackers and DBs after the 7-on-7 involved an assistant rolling a donut toward a player who ran to meet it head on and bring it to the ground. "Right shoulder, right foot," Fritz kept yelling. Luke Jackson and Carroll participated in that drill.
Fritz had music blaring over the loudspeakers during the 11-on-11 session, which had a few referees. Daren Williams, who is out with a severe ankle sprain, held up the formation calls for the defense from the sideline. Tulane is experimenting with a lot of different defensive formations, but the base defense at the beginning of 11 on 11 had Ade Aruna and Carroll at end, Sean Wilson and Eldrick Washington at tackle, Harris and Marbley at LB, Franklin at nickel, Stephon Lofton and Hall at CB and Shenall and Teamer at safety.
The second-team D had three linemen, with Peter Woullard and a number I didn't catch flanking Braynon Edwards, Carroll and Jackson playing what amounts to OLB and Graham and Larry Bryant playing ILB. The Harpers were at safety with Donnie and Eric Lewis at CB. Donnie Lewis is being eased back into reps after missing considerable time with a hamstring injury.
The first-team offensive line was the usual suspects with the exception of Tyler Johnson, who did not participate. Keyshawn McLeod replaced him, with Leeward Brown, Junior Diaz, Dominique Briggs and John Leglue. The second-team line had McLeod, Briggs at left guard, Diaz, Knighton at right guard and Devon Johnson at right tackle.
Briggs was called for a false start on the first play. The only touchdown of the controlled, situational session came on a nice cutback by Corey Dauphine, who is a heck of player. I talked to him after practice and will post that interview early next week.
Banks missed an open Clewis over the middle. Brantley tried a quick out that could have been disastrous in a game because he threw it backwards and behind everyone. It ended up going out of bounds but would have been live ball in a game. Cuiellette dropped a perfect snap when he was looking over the defense. Fittingly, the 11-on-11 work ended when the defense got a lot of pressure, forcing Cuillette to throw the ball away out of bounds.
After practice, Brian Newman, Stephon Huderson and Hilliard worked on catching punts. Huderson dropped one. Don't rule out Newman, a walk-on, from winning that duty. He's not the favorite, but he's been back there consistently in the spring.
The scrimmage Saturday will not feature tackling. Here's what Fritz had to say about this thought process there and on what he wants to see from the final workout of the spring:
"I've been going back and forth about trying to see if we can run some plays live. I just don't think we can do it. We've got a couple more guys injured or are hobbled. I'm not quite sure what it would accomplish. We work on tackling a great deal and we want to get everybody into the offseason program. We're going to work on two-minute. We'll have a couple of situations with our 1s and 2s because we have a full allotment of officials, and that's hard to replicate with just your coaches out there, so whenever we have some officials, I try to do some two-minute. And then we'll do a little bit of kicking game with the officials out there going down the tempo, and then we'll do thud-up tempo and we'll try to get maybe 60 plays in. It will be a good workout for us. The other part, too, sometimes you want to go live to distinguish between this guy and that guy, but I've been doing this long enough that I can kind of figure out who's where based on what we've been doing for 14 practices. If not, I shouldn't be here. But it will get these guys experience, and then we'll take Sunday off and start getting into the offseason and cutting back and focusing solely on academics instead of academics and football."
There should be about 10 recruits at the spring game. Tulane actually preferred having recruits come before then so they could watch a real practice instead of the glorified exhibition that will occur Saturday.
Thursday was a sno-ball day after practice, with the place I grew up going to, Williams-Plum Street Sno Balls, handing out free cups for everyone as they left the stadium. I got spearmint. SID Scottie Rodgers chose Wild Cherry. This is a full-service report.
"We still have to get firm in our protection," he said. "It looked like the defense today got some good push on pass plays, whereas the last scrimmage we did, the offense really did a good job of setting a good, clean pocket for the quarterbacks. Hopefully we'll get that on some occasions. The problem when you scrimmage each other is one side of the ball does good and the other side does bad, so that's not always what you want to have. I'd like to get in some clean pockets where you can really see the guy go through his progressions instead of running for his life."
Fritz wasn't exactly panicking, though. His overall assessment of the day was positive.
"It was good," he said. "We got a lot of stuff done. We're still inserting some plays offensively, and then defensively we worked on a new coverage in front here today. We got some good work in the special teams early, so it was a very productive practice."
Several players sat out with injuries: among them were offensive lineman John Washington, running back Miles Strickland, offensive lineman Brian Webb, defensive end Daren Williams, cornerback Thakarius Keyes, walk-on defensive back Sam Davis and cornerback Tre Jackson. To me, Jackson's is the most concerning. I will get an update on him either tomorrow or in the post-spring press conference next week, but his body language has not looked good as he sat out the last two practices. He's walking OK, but remember, Fritz said he had been concerned about Jackson's future in December and January because his knee was not coming around from a devastating injury in his senior year of high school. Hopefully it's just precautionary rest.
Keyes, who is being held out for the entire spring to protect his right knee, simulated some defensive reps in individual drills, running pretty well with a brace on the knee.
Quinlan Carroll is being double-trained at linebacker and end. Midway through Thursday's practice, he raced off the field and went out of the stadium after working with the linebackers. I followed him to the outside practice field, and sure enough, he was getting reps at end. The other guy in that boat is Luke Jackson, although I did not see him get any reps with the D-line on Thursday.
When they had 7-on-7 work, the first-team defend was Rae Juan Marbley and Zach Harris at linebacker, Taris Shenall and Roderic Teamer at safety, Parry Nickerson and P.J. Hall (in a red no-contact jersey) at cornerback and Jarrod Franklin at nickel. The second-team D was Carroll and Lawrence Graham at LB, Sean and Will Harper at safety, Eric Lewis and John Helow at cornerback (due to the guy sitting out) and Chase Napoleon at nickel. Napoleon, who has spent some time at linebacker this spring after coming in as a DB, struggled mightily in pass coverage, getting toasted by Darnell Mooney.
In his first 7-on-7 session, Banks overthrew Jabril Clewis deep, hit Devin Glenn inside and threw a late sideline pass that Harris almost intercepted. Later, he completed a slant to D.J. Owens but threw it behind him, forcing him to slow down and lose his momentum.
Johnathan Brantley, who has gone in second the last two practices, connected with Jacob Robertson deep and threw to Mooney on the play where Napoleon was left in the dust. Later, Brantley was less sharp, throwing a sideline pass to no one and having another one glance off Mooney's hands after he ran out of bounds to catch up with it.
Cuiellette, working with the last receivers, hit Rocky Ferony for a decent gain but was mainly in checkdown mode, throwing in the flat to Dontrell Hilliard and for a very short gain to Glenn.
It was a really good day for Glenn, who got some time with the first unit and caught more passes than any other receiver. I did not notice him much earlier in the spring, but Fritz did, and Glenn has closed spring ball strong. He could be a factor in the fall. After catching a pass from Banks on an out route, one of his teammates yelled, "Good job, Jet."
"He kind of had a little spurt in there where he had a difficult time catching the ball, but boy, at the beginning of the spring he was great, and he was good there towards the end," Fritz said. "He's probably the smallest guy on our team and he may be one of the toughest guys we've got on our team. He is tough. He's great in the kicking game for us, and he's a really good blocker out on the perimeter for being a buck-50, a buck-55, whatever he is. He has great speed and he has great toughness. That's what makes him a very effective player for us."
Near the end of the 7-on-7 drill, Nickerson leaped to deflect a deep pass but landed awkwardly and started favoring his left knee. He walked to the sideline, talked to a trainer and sat out the rest of the practice, applying ice to the knee for a good while.
The tackling drill for the linebackers and DBs after the 7-on-7 involved an assistant rolling a donut toward a player who ran to meet it head on and bring it to the ground. "Right shoulder, right foot," Fritz kept yelling. Luke Jackson and Carroll participated in that drill.
Fritz had music blaring over the loudspeakers during the 11-on-11 session, which had a few referees. Daren Williams, who is out with a severe ankle sprain, held up the formation calls for the defense from the sideline. Tulane is experimenting with a lot of different defensive formations, but the base defense at the beginning of 11 on 11 had Ade Aruna and Carroll at end, Sean Wilson and Eldrick Washington at tackle, Harris and Marbley at LB, Franklin at nickel, Stephon Lofton and Hall at CB and Shenall and Teamer at safety.
The second-team D had three linemen, with Peter Woullard and a number I didn't catch flanking Braynon Edwards, Carroll and Jackson playing what amounts to OLB and Graham and Larry Bryant playing ILB. The Harpers were at safety with Donnie and Eric Lewis at CB. Donnie Lewis is being eased back into reps after missing considerable time with a hamstring injury.
The first-team offensive line was the usual suspects with the exception of Tyler Johnson, who did not participate. Keyshawn McLeod replaced him, with Leeward Brown, Junior Diaz, Dominique Briggs and John Leglue. The second-team line had McLeod, Briggs at left guard, Diaz, Knighton at right guard and Devon Johnson at right tackle.
Briggs was called for a false start on the first play. The only touchdown of the controlled, situational session came on a nice cutback by Corey Dauphine, who is a heck of player. I talked to him after practice and will post that interview early next week.
Banks missed an open Clewis over the middle. Brantley tried a quick out that could have been disastrous in a game because he threw it backwards and behind everyone. It ended up going out of bounds but would have been live ball in a game. Cuiellette dropped a perfect snap when he was looking over the defense. Fittingly, the 11-on-11 work ended when the defense got a lot of pressure, forcing Cuillette to throw the ball away out of bounds.
After practice, Brian Newman, Stephon Huderson and Hilliard worked on catching punts. Huderson dropped one. Don't rule out Newman, a walk-on, from winning that duty. He's not the favorite, but he's been back there consistently in the spring.
The scrimmage Saturday will not feature tackling. Here's what Fritz had to say about this thought process there and on what he wants to see from the final workout of the spring:
"I've been going back and forth about trying to see if we can run some plays live. I just don't think we can do it. We've got a couple more guys injured or are hobbled. I'm not quite sure what it would accomplish. We work on tackling a great deal and we want to get everybody into the offseason program. We're going to work on two-minute. We'll have a couple of situations with our 1s and 2s because we have a full allotment of officials, and that's hard to replicate with just your coaches out there, so whenever we have some officials, I try to do some two-minute. And then we'll do a little bit of kicking game with the officials out there going down the tempo, and then we'll do thud-up tempo and we'll try to get maybe 60 plays in. It will be a good workout for us. The other part, too, sometimes you want to go live to distinguish between this guy and that guy, but I've been doing this long enough that I can kind of figure out who's where based on what we've been doing for 14 practices. If not, I shouldn't be here. But it will get these guys experience, and then we'll take Sunday off and start getting into the offseason and cutting back and focusing solely on academics instead of academics and football."
There should be about 10 recruits at the spring game. Tulane actually preferred having recruits come before then so they could watch a real practice instead of the glorified exhibition that will occur Saturday.
Thursday was a sno-ball day after practice, with the place I grew up going to, Williams-Plum Street Sno Balls, handing out free cups for everyone as they left the stadium. I got spearmint. SID Scottie Rodgers chose Wild Cherry. This is a full-service report.
