This report will be shorter but with plenty of quotes. There were a lot of TV people at practice today and I got in too many conversations instead of paying attention to what was happening on the field. I will be back to the thorough report tomorrow.
Jalen McCleskey, who was serenaded with Happy Birthday for turning 22 today at the end of the workout, missed his second consecutive practice after feeling some tightness in his hamstring, so that bears watching. Willie Fritz said yesterday the new Catapult System they were using to monitor some players at practice had indicated McCleskey needed a rest. Also sitting out today were safety P.J. Hall and freshman safety Tyler Judson along with freshman offensive lineman Caleb Thomas. I'm no medical expert, but wide receiver Sorrell Brown was limping quite a bit on his right leg and I don't see him returning to practice any time soon.
When they went to 11-on-11 work in the last 25 minutes of what was the hottest (weather-wise) practice of camp today, they worked on red zone on the opposite end of the field from where I was standing. Tulane finished 10th nationally in red zone scoring percentage last year at 90.9 percent, and although the way the NCAA keeps that stat is wrong--It should be number of points scored per red zone possession because the current method essentialy measures how often a kicker makes medium-to-short field goals--the Wave was pretty effective at reaching the end zone in the red zone under Doug Ruse. The Wave scored 22 touchdowns in 33 red zone series, which was a better percentage than five of the nine teams ahead of it on the NCAA list and better than all but 31 teams in the FCS. The problem was getting to the red zone. Only six FBS teams had fewer red zone possessions per game than Tulane's 2.54.
Will Hall figures to rely on the passing game much more than Ruse did in the red zone. Tulane had only three red zone touchdown passes last season compared to 19 rushing TDs, but there was a lot of quick passing in the red zone drill today. I did not catalog the results, but Justin McMillan threw a nice pass to Amare Jones in the corner of the end zone and Stephon Huderson made a nice cut on his way to the end zone on a running play (again, the drills aren't really live, so judging what would have happened on runs is difficult).
Fritz, Hall. Bradwell and McMillan had group interviews today, but here is my one-on-one with Fritz at the Wilson Center yesterday after everyone returned from the Saints indoor facility:
FRITZ
That was one of the more testy practices under your tenure. What were your thoughts?
"We'll talk to them. I like the guys competing and all that kind of stuff, but sometimes they get to watching TV too much."
How helpful was it to be able to practice indoors in bad weather?
"It was great. I thought for a second the weather was going to be real nice (at noon, when they practiced after being rained out in the morning) and that we blew it, but you just never know around here. I've said a million times we're blessed that the Saints let us go out there and use their place. It's always nice to have 71 degrees indoor with the AC blowing. It allows you to go two-hour-and-15-minute practices and seem like you go an hour-and-a-half."
Has Ben Knutson moved ahead at right guard?
"We're still playing a bunch of guys. We're rolling in Keyshawn McLeod and Cameron Jackel and Ben and maybe next week Sincere Haynesworth might get some reps in there. He's a guard, too. We're just trying to find our best five."
This (wearable) Catapult System that you guys have started. How did you get involved with it?
"Yeah. I went up to a head-coaching retreat and a bunch of people had it and talked about it in great detail and length. It's just another way to have an edge. You kind of guess who's maybe taxed physically, but it's just that. It's just a guess. Now we're able to actually put numbers to it. It gives you a mark as far as explosiveness and distance covered and getting near your top speed throughout practice. We've got a bunch of different guys in positions groups and just seeing where they should be fairly indicative of their position. It's a very expensive system, but we want to know if Darnell Mooney is a little bit more taxed physically in one particular practice than another. That can maybe alleviate some soft-tissue injuries. There was an interesting stat I saw the other day where in the NCAA last year 40 percent of the soft-tissue injuries occurred in the first five days of practice, so we're really doing a good job building up with quality repetitions. It may seem like we're practicing a long time and not doing anything different, but it is different because we're rolling three groups instead of two groups, so guys are not getting as many quality reps in team and seven-on-seven and all those kind of things."
Was the coaching retreat this past offseason?
"Yeah, it was about a month or two ago. Pat Fitzgerald, who we're actually playing next year from Northwestern. We had a bunch of people up there. The guy from Oregon, Mario Cristobal, the head coach at Buffalo, Lance Leipold. It was just a meeting in Chicago. The guy from Toledo was there."
Are you using it on a trial basis?
"No, we bought it full. We bought two deals that probably not many teams in our league have. We got a Rise system that measures sleep. Everybody's got an App on their phone. We can tell how long the guys are sleeping, if they are in sleep debt, when their peak hours are. It tells all sorts of stuff. That's stuff we talk about a lot but now we can actually measure. And this Catapult System is really a GPS tracking device. We spent a lot of money on both of these deals. We'll do it year-round."
How many players are using it?
"For the Catapult we've got 22 guys that are on it. We've got a couple that we put on different guys each day. The Sleep Rise system is for all guys."
Are there specific positions you emphasize with the Catapult?
"Yeah, a little bit more movement guys. We have one offensive lineman and one defensive lineman that we're tracking. We're not tracking the quarterbacks. It's really wideouts, DBs, linebackers, tight ends."
What does it look like?
"It looks like they're wearing a sports bra. We are going to do something, too, where we put it in their shoulder pads. It's kind of hot."
So nobody has complained about having to use it?
"Nope. As a matter of fact the guys are pretty into it. We just hired an assistant strength coach from Oregon, and that's where he really did it. He can interpret the data. We've had a couple of meetings where we've really gone over everything from A to Z, but we don't have time to do that every day. He'll give us the high points or you better watch out for this guy or this guy established a new duration of running 75 percent or higher of his max speed. It's pretty interesting."
Have you changed anything yet based on that data?
'You know, Jalen McCleskey for example didn't practice today because he had hit some high marks and he was feeling it a little bit with his hamstring, so we just backed off. Back in the old days we would not have done that, but with his workload and how his body was feeling, it's a combination of a lot of things. It's also the input from the training staff and all that. We want to be smart with some guys. These guys pull a hamstring and sometimes that injury bothers them for a whole year, so we just want to stay as far away from those as we can."
Jalen McCleskey, who was serenaded with Happy Birthday for turning 22 today at the end of the workout, missed his second consecutive practice after feeling some tightness in his hamstring, so that bears watching. Willie Fritz said yesterday the new Catapult System they were using to monitor some players at practice had indicated McCleskey needed a rest. Also sitting out today were safety P.J. Hall and freshman safety Tyler Judson along with freshman offensive lineman Caleb Thomas. I'm no medical expert, but wide receiver Sorrell Brown was limping quite a bit on his right leg and I don't see him returning to practice any time soon.
When they went to 11-on-11 work in the last 25 minutes of what was the hottest (weather-wise) practice of camp today, they worked on red zone on the opposite end of the field from where I was standing. Tulane finished 10th nationally in red zone scoring percentage last year at 90.9 percent, and although the way the NCAA keeps that stat is wrong--It should be number of points scored per red zone possession because the current method essentialy measures how often a kicker makes medium-to-short field goals--the Wave was pretty effective at reaching the end zone in the red zone under Doug Ruse. The Wave scored 22 touchdowns in 33 red zone series, which was a better percentage than five of the nine teams ahead of it on the NCAA list and better than all but 31 teams in the FCS. The problem was getting to the red zone. Only six FBS teams had fewer red zone possessions per game than Tulane's 2.54.
Will Hall figures to rely on the passing game much more than Ruse did in the red zone. Tulane had only three red zone touchdown passes last season compared to 19 rushing TDs, but there was a lot of quick passing in the red zone drill today. I did not catalog the results, but Justin McMillan threw a nice pass to Amare Jones in the corner of the end zone and Stephon Huderson made a nice cut on his way to the end zone on a running play (again, the drills aren't really live, so judging what would have happened on runs is difficult).
Fritz, Hall. Bradwell and McMillan had group interviews today, but here is my one-on-one with Fritz at the Wilson Center yesterday after everyone returned from the Saints indoor facility:
FRITZ
That was one of the more testy practices under your tenure. What were your thoughts?
"We'll talk to them. I like the guys competing and all that kind of stuff, but sometimes they get to watching TV too much."
How helpful was it to be able to practice indoors in bad weather?
"It was great. I thought for a second the weather was going to be real nice (at noon, when they practiced after being rained out in the morning) and that we blew it, but you just never know around here. I've said a million times we're blessed that the Saints let us go out there and use their place. It's always nice to have 71 degrees indoor with the AC blowing. It allows you to go two-hour-and-15-minute practices and seem like you go an hour-and-a-half."
Has Ben Knutson moved ahead at right guard?
"We're still playing a bunch of guys. We're rolling in Keyshawn McLeod and Cameron Jackel and Ben and maybe next week Sincere Haynesworth might get some reps in there. He's a guard, too. We're just trying to find our best five."
This (wearable) Catapult System that you guys have started. How did you get involved with it?
"Yeah. I went up to a head-coaching retreat and a bunch of people had it and talked about it in great detail and length. It's just another way to have an edge. You kind of guess who's maybe taxed physically, but it's just that. It's just a guess. Now we're able to actually put numbers to it. It gives you a mark as far as explosiveness and distance covered and getting near your top speed throughout practice. We've got a bunch of different guys in positions groups and just seeing where they should be fairly indicative of their position. It's a very expensive system, but we want to know if Darnell Mooney is a little bit more taxed physically in one particular practice than another. That can maybe alleviate some soft-tissue injuries. There was an interesting stat I saw the other day where in the NCAA last year 40 percent of the soft-tissue injuries occurred in the first five days of practice, so we're really doing a good job building up with quality repetitions. It may seem like we're practicing a long time and not doing anything different, but it is different because we're rolling three groups instead of two groups, so guys are not getting as many quality reps in team and seven-on-seven and all those kind of things."
Was the coaching retreat this past offseason?
"Yeah, it was about a month or two ago. Pat Fitzgerald, who we're actually playing next year from Northwestern. We had a bunch of people up there. The guy from Oregon, Mario Cristobal, the head coach at Buffalo, Lance Leipold. It was just a meeting in Chicago. The guy from Toledo was there."
Are you using it on a trial basis?
"No, we bought it full. We bought two deals that probably not many teams in our league have. We got a Rise system that measures sleep. Everybody's got an App on their phone. We can tell how long the guys are sleeping, if they are in sleep debt, when their peak hours are. It tells all sorts of stuff. That's stuff we talk about a lot but now we can actually measure. And this Catapult System is really a GPS tracking device. We spent a lot of money on both of these deals. We'll do it year-round."
How many players are using it?
"For the Catapult we've got 22 guys that are on it. We've got a couple that we put on different guys each day. The Sleep Rise system is for all guys."
Are there specific positions you emphasize with the Catapult?
"Yeah, a little bit more movement guys. We have one offensive lineman and one defensive lineman that we're tracking. We're not tracking the quarterbacks. It's really wideouts, DBs, linebackers, tight ends."
What does it look like?
"It looks like they're wearing a sports bra. We are going to do something, too, where we put it in their shoulder pads. It's kind of hot."
So nobody has complained about having to use it?
"Nope. As a matter of fact the guys are pretty into it. We just hired an assistant strength coach from Oregon, and that's where he really did it. He can interpret the data. We've had a couple of meetings where we've really gone over everything from A to Z, but we don't have time to do that every day. He'll give us the high points or you better watch out for this guy or this guy established a new duration of running 75 percent or higher of his max speed. It's pretty interesting."
Have you changed anything yet based on that data?
'You know, Jalen McCleskey for example didn't practice today because he had hit some high marks and he was feeling it a little bit with his hamstring, so we just backed off. Back in the old days we would not have done that, but with his workload and how his body was feeling, it's a combination of a lot of things. It's also the input from the training staff and all that. We want to be smart with some guys. These guys pull a hamstring and sometimes that injury bothers them for a whole year, so we just want to stay as far away from those as we can."
