Tulane called an audible yesterday afternoon and moved practice to Thursday instead of Friday due to the possibility of dicey weather. I made it for the last 30 minutes today, and the most important thing I saw was running back Corey Dauphine in uniform. He did not practice, but he was walking around fine with no brace, and Willie Fritz said he hoped to have him back Saturday. Whether that's the case or not, it clearly will not be a long-term injury.
"He's going to be fine," Fritz said.
This was the lightest practice I've seen in the spring, with no 11-on-11 work at the end. Instead, they had a 7-on-7 drill while the offensive and defensive linemen continued to practice on the auxilary field outside the stadium. Dane Ledford and Christian Daniels took almost all of the reps, and Ledford was sharp.
On his first throw, he floated a nice ball on an out route over the cornerback and in front of the safety to Jabril Clewis for about a 20-yard gain. On the next play, he hit Terren Encalade for a touchdown on a post pattern. I did not catch the number of the guy Encalade beat, but the pass hit him in stride in the end zone.
Cornerback Willie Langham knocked down Ledford's next pass just as it reached walk-on tight end Connor Prouet, but he found tight end Charles Jones with a quick hitter one play later.
"He (Ledford) looked pretty good the few practices and then he faded a little bit, but he's come back strong and is ascending now," Willie Fritz said.
That dovetails with my opinion. Fritz also was high on Christian Daniels, which does not, but then again, it's hard to expect a high school senior to come in and be a world-beater right away before the rest of his classmates even go to their prom. Daniels threw wide of walk-one wide receiver Brian Newman on his first throw, hit Rocky Ferony over the middle, had a rare drop from Kevin LeDee after hitting him on the sideline and had a pass knocked down for Clewis. At this point, Daniels does not have a lot of accuracy or velocity on his throws, but he is a good athlete.
"We're very excited with him," Fritz said. "For a high school senior he's doing a nice job picking things up. This is quite a bit of a different offense than what he ran in high school."
Geron Etherly got some work on offense during the 7-on-7 drill because of a body shortage. He joked with the other kickers at the end, "I think I juked Donnie (Lewis). They are going to give me Number 5 (Encalade's number)."
After the 7-on-7 drill, the offense and defense had separate drills, with the quarterbacks throwing to the wide receivers against no defenders. Terren Encalade dropped a pass in that segment, but I have noticed fewer drops overall this spring. Darnell Mooney has missed a couple of critical ones, but until LeDee dropped the one in the 7-on-7 drill, I had not seen a wideout blow an easy opportunity other than Mooney. LeDee rebounded from his drop with an outstanding leaping catch in the end zone during the passing drill.
While that was going on, the defensive players lined up in two separate lines 10 yards apart. One defender had to take an angle on the other one and get to him, with Fritz repeatedly yelling "aingle beats speed."
Just as I was expecting them to start the 11-on-11 work, Fritz whistled the end of practice. Offensive tackle Tyler Johnson and wide receiver Jacob Robertson remained out.
Fritz had said they would have scrimmage-like activity in Saturday morning's practice before spreak break, but he backed off a bit today.
"We're going to look and see because of depth," he said. "There's a couple of spots where we're thin. We'd like to. We have a bunch of young guys that are playing fast, and I'd like to see if they are really finishing those plays or not. We have some good competition at the linebacker position and in the secondary, so it would be nice to at least do a couple dozen, three dozen plays with some live tackling without the quarterback obviously."
AD Troy Dannen attended practice today. Nola.com was at practice today, so Fritz was asked to recap the performance of several groups.
How do you feel about spring practice overall?
"We're in a pretty good place," Fritz said. "We've got some competition at some positions. It's not clearcut at quite a few spots who's 1, who's 2 and who's 3. That's good. Guys are jockeying for position. Who is second team and who is third team? Who is going to start on the kicking game. It's not the final test, but it's a pretty important quiz here in spring ball to see who's going to be playing the most for us."
Where are you offensively?
"We're way ahead. We've got everything in, not everything but probably about 80 percent of our offense. Jonathan Banks has great command of it right now. The thing I'm impressed is he's always had good mechanics, but he has good mechanics now when we're doing team stuff. That's where I've seen the progression. He knows where he's going with the ball. He picked up where he left off those last three or four games last year."
What about your backfield? You lost some key guys but there seems to be a lot of talent back there?
"We feel like we've got an opportunity to be as good or better than last season. We're losing some good players obviously in Dontrell (Hilliard) and Sherman (Badie), but Bradwell has a chance to be a prime time back. Corey Dauphine, (Stephon) Huderson really had a great practice yesterday. We didn't do as much offense and defense today but he really looked good yesterday and we have three freshmen coming in who I think are really good backs."
"He's going to be fine," Fritz said.
This was the lightest practice I've seen in the spring, with no 11-on-11 work at the end. Instead, they had a 7-on-7 drill while the offensive and defensive linemen continued to practice on the auxilary field outside the stadium. Dane Ledford and Christian Daniels took almost all of the reps, and Ledford was sharp.
On his first throw, he floated a nice ball on an out route over the cornerback and in front of the safety to Jabril Clewis for about a 20-yard gain. On the next play, he hit Terren Encalade for a touchdown on a post pattern. I did not catch the number of the guy Encalade beat, but the pass hit him in stride in the end zone.
Cornerback Willie Langham knocked down Ledford's next pass just as it reached walk-on tight end Connor Prouet, but he found tight end Charles Jones with a quick hitter one play later.
"He (Ledford) looked pretty good the few practices and then he faded a little bit, but he's come back strong and is ascending now," Willie Fritz said.
That dovetails with my opinion. Fritz also was high on Christian Daniels, which does not, but then again, it's hard to expect a high school senior to come in and be a world-beater right away before the rest of his classmates even go to their prom. Daniels threw wide of walk-one wide receiver Brian Newman on his first throw, hit Rocky Ferony over the middle, had a rare drop from Kevin LeDee after hitting him on the sideline and had a pass knocked down for Clewis. At this point, Daniels does not have a lot of accuracy or velocity on his throws, but he is a good athlete.
"We're very excited with him," Fritz said. "For a high school senior he's doing a nice job picking things up. This is quite a bit of a different offense than what he ran in high school."
Geron Etherly got some work on offense during the 7-on-7 drill because of a body shortage. He joked with the other kickers at the end, "I think I juked Donnie (Lewis). They are going to give me Number 5 (Encalade's number)."
After the 7-on-7 drill, the offense and defense had separate drills, with the quarterbacks throwing to the wide receivers against no defenders. Terren Encalade dropped a pass in that segment, but I have noticed fewer drops overall this spring. Darnell Mooney has missed a couple of critical ones, but until LeDee dropped the one in the 7-on-7 drill, I had not seen a wideout blow an easy opportunity other than Mooney. LeDee rebounded from his drop with an outstanding leaping catch in the end zone during the passing drill.
While that was going on, the defensive players lined up in two separate lines 10 yards apart. One defender had to take an angle on the other one and get to him, with Fritz repeatedly yelling "aingle beats speed."
Just as I was expecting them to start the 11-on-11 work, Fritz whistled the end of practice. Offensive tackle Tyler Johnson and wide receiver Jacob Robertson remained out.
Fritz had said they would have scrimmage-like activity in Saturday morning's practice before spreak break, but he backed off a bit today.
"We're going to look and see because of depth," he said. "There's a couple of spots where we're thin. We'd like to. We have a bunch of young guys that are playing fast, and I'd like to see if they are really finishing those plays or not. We have some good competition at the linebacker position and in the secondary, so it would be nice to at least do a couple dozen, three dozen plays with some live tackling without the quarterback obviously."
AD Troy Dannen attended practice today. Nola.com was at practice today, so Fritz was asked to recap the performance of several groups.
How do you feel about spring practice overall?
"We're in a pretty good place," Fritz said. "We've got some competition at some positions. It's not clearcut at quite a few spots who's 1, who's 2 and who's 3. That's good. Guys are jockeying for position. Who is second team and who is third team? Who is going to start on the kicking game. It's not the final test, but it's a pretty important quiz here in spring ball to see who's going to be playing the most for us."
Where are you offensively?
"We're way ahead. We've got everything in, not everything but probably about 80 percent of our offense. Jonathan Banks has great command of it right now. The thing I'm impressed is he's always had good mechanics, but he has good mechanics now when we're doing team stuff. That's where I've seen the progression. He knows where he's going with the ball. He picked up where he left off those last three or four games last year."
What about your backfield? You lost some key guys but there seems to be a lot of talent back there?
"We feel like we've got an opportunity to be as good or better than last season. We're losing some good players obviously in Dontrell (Hilliard) and Sherman (Badie), but Bradwell has a chance to be a prime time back. Corey Dauphine, (Stephon) Huderson really had a great practice yesterday. We didn't do as much offense and defense today but he really looked good yesterday and we have three freshmen coming in who I think are really good backs."
