Tulane concentrated on special teams today but had an extended seven-on-seven drill in the middle of practice.
When I got there, they were doing a conditioning drill where Jeffery Johnson showed surprising speed for a huge man. He raced to a cone to finish the drill and dove into it, knocking into Tirise Barge as they got there at the same time. Barge was not hurt, and it was a heck of an effort by Johnson, who is nothing like Tulane's big, overweight defensive linemen in the past. He has the potential for a phenomenal sophomore year.
A little later, Willie Fritz called out a new drill and quickly realized he had called the wrong thing, correcting himself and apologizing for the mistake before hollering "Some people, the next time they admit they make a mistake will be the first time they admit they make a mistake. I own it. I own it."
As usual, Fritz is coaching these guys hard. He repeatedly yelled at players to get off the field faster when they were subbing units in the 7-on-7 drill. He does not tolerate lolly-gagging.
The 7-on-7 work started slowly for the offense, with Justin McMillan throwing behind Jalen McCleskey, Darius Bradwell dropping an easy pass in the flat from Keon Howard and Tyrick James dropping a pass from McMillan in the flat. It picked up quickly from there. McMillan hooked up with Jaetavian Toles for a long touchdown pass, hitting him in stride behind Willie Langham and P.J. Hall. It's been a running commentary from me that since I started covering Bob Toledo's Tulane practices in 2010, I've seen fewer than 10 legitimate bombs completed cleanly in practice. That's probably an exaggeration, but they have been far and few between. This was a bomb that was completed perfectly. McMillan then threw a beautiful deep sideline pass to Darnell Mooney through a type window, with Mooney leaping to catch it and getting his feet inbounds. On the next snap, Tyrick James got open deep down the middle of the field, and McMillan found him, although he had to slow down to make the grab. McMillan was sharp overall.
Toles is shaping up as the No. 3 receiver I said they still needed to develop earlier this week.
"He's had a great spring ball, he really has," Willie Fritz said. "He's gotten big time better. In high school he played both ways even though he played at a big high school in Texas. He's learning every day and he's good in the kicking game. He's really a competitive guy."
Keon Howard had his usual issues, throwing a wobbly duck deep to Jorrien Vallien that was broken up and throwing too high for Vallien on a crossing pattern. He did hit Will Wallace on a shallow out pattern.
Walk-on Josh Holl has some arm talent. He completed a pass to Vallien in traffic on the final play of 7-on-7.
On kickoffs, Sterling Stockwell, Casey Glover and Randy Harvey alternated and did a decent job, but the Wave has big shoes to fill in that department with the graduation of Zach Block. Aside from the maddening occasional kick out of bounds, he consistently placed the ball in the end zone.
Punter Ryan Wright, who is coming off a promising freshman debut, worked on an interesting drill with long snapper Geron Eatherly right in front of me. Wright told Eatherly to purposely snap the ball short, forcing him to short hop the ball. Wright, a high school QB who also played basketball and baseball, is an excellent athlete. He fielded about 10 in a row cleanly with no bobbles even though they were landing in front of him. Eatherly, by the way, is just as good at executing bad snaps as good ones. The ball goes where he aims it every single time.
It appears that K.J. Vault has moved to nickelback. He practiced there in individual position work along with Larry Bryant, Will Harper and Barge. I did not notice any other position changes, and everyone at the linebacker, secondary, running back, receiver and quarterback positions was available aside from the receivers who have been out all spring (Jacob Robertson, Sorrell Brown, Kevin LeDee.
Fritz started his talk with reporters by mentioning that Vince Gibson's son was at practice and praising Vince Gibson for having done a good job when he was Tulane coach. That allowed me to tell him when I was a kid, I had a T-shirt that read "Three out of Four and Going for More" about the Tulane-LSU series in 1983. I also told him how Gibson got fired after beating the ranked Tigers in Tiger Stadium, a game I watched at then Tulane Arena (Devlin Fieldhouse) on a big screen after they invited fans to attend. That was truly a different era. My uptown neighborhood had not been wired for cable yet, something that finally came a few months after Tulane's win in Baton Rouge.
FRITZ
You said you were going to do a lot of special teams today, and you did.
"We did a bunch. We worked on extra points, field goal, extra point and field goal block (all before I got there) and then we worked all of our punt, kickoff, kickoff return, punt block. We are going to do a lot of good on good (11-on-11 scrimmage type work) tomorrow. We're going to divide guys up and get some nice work in tomorrow."
Halfway through spring drills, how do you feel?
"Good. We've just got to keep the guys locked in and focused and not getting ahead of themselves. We've got a lot of practice left to get better, so we need to keep it up."
Where is the offense in terms of progress?
"Pretty good. We're doing a lot of different things, varying snap counts, using a lot of different personnel, a lot of motions and shifts. I really like where we're at right now, but we still don't have everything in."
It looks like running backs are being put at different spots on the field and being asked to do more.
"Yeah, we're really lucky. We've got a bunch of backs who really catch the ball well, so we'll utilize them in the passing game and also split them out wide. A good tell for you is when you get into empty with one back and spread a tight end or a receiver out and they match a guy with a linebacker, they are probably in man coverage, particularly if you've got them out there as your number one receiver. If they go out there with a corner, they are probably in zone coverage. It's a good pre-snap indicator, and we're just working on that kind of stuff."
I will have more from Fritz later. He talked about Wright and Eatherly among other topics. I also will attend tomorrow's practice and provide an update on the depth chart situation and who looks good.
When I got there, they were doing a conditioning drill where Jeffery Johnson showed surprising speed for a huge man. He raced to a cone to finish the drill and dove into it, knocking into Tirise Barge as they got there at the same time. Barge was not hurt, and it was a heck of an effort by Johnson, who is nothing like Tulane's big, overweight defensive linemen in the past. He has the potential for a phenomenal sophomore year.
A little later, Willie Fritz called out a new drill and quickly realized he had called the wrong thing, correcting himself and apologizing for the mistake before hollering "Some people, the next time they admit they make a mistake will be the first time they admit they make a mistake. I own it. I own it."
As usual, Fritz is coaching these guys hard. He repeatedly yelled at players to get off the field faster when they were subbing units in the 7-on-7 drill. He does not tolerate lolly-gagging.
The 7-on-7 work started slowly for the offense, with Justin McMillan throwing behind Jalen McCleskey, Darius Bradwell dropping an easy pass in the flat from Keon Howard and Tyrick James dropping a pass from McMillan in the flat. It picked up quickly from there. McMillan hooked up with Jaetavian Toles for a long touchdown pass, hitting him in stride behind Willie Langham and P.J. Hall. It's been a running commentary from me that since I started covering Bob Toledo's Tulane practices in 2010, I've seen fewer than 10 legitimate bombs completed cleanly in practice. That's probably an exaggeration, but they have been far and few between. This was a bomb that was completed perfectly. McMillan then threw a beautiful deep sideline pass to Darnell Mooney through a type window, with Mooney leaping to catch it and getting his feet inbounds. On the next snap, Tyrick James got open deep down the middle of the field, and McMillan found him, although he had to slow down to make the grab. McMillan was sharp overall.
Toles is shaping up as the No. 3 receiver I said they still needed to develop earlier this week.
"He's had a great spring ball, he really has," Willie Fritz said. "He's gotten big time better. In high school he played both ways even though he played at a big high school in Texas. He's learning every day and he's good in the kicking game. He's really a competitive guy."
Keon Howard had his usual issues, throwing a wobbly duck deep to Jorrien Vallien that was broken up and throwing too high for Vallien on a crossing pattern. He did hit Will Wallace on a shallow out pattern.
Walk-on Josh Holl has some arm talent. He completed a pass to Vallien in traffic on the final play of 7-on-7.
On kickoffs, Sterling Stockwell, Casey Glover and Randy Harvey alternated and did a decent job, but the Wave has big shoes to fill in that department with the graduation of Zach Block. Aside from the maddening occasional kick out of bounds, he consistently placed the ball in the end zone.
Punter Ryan Wright, who is coming off a promising freshman debut, worked on an interesting drill with long snapper Geron Eatherly right in front of me. Wright told Eatherly to purposely snap the ball short, forcing him to short hop the ball. Wright, a high school QB who also played basketball and baseball, is an excellent athlete. He fielded about 10 in a row cleanly with no bobbles even though they were landing in front of him. Eatherly, by the way, is just as good at executing bad snaps as good ones. The ball goes where he aims it every single time.
It appears that K.J. Vault has moved to nickelback. He practiced there in individual position work along with Larry Bryant, Will Harper and Barge. I did not notice any other position changes, and everyone at the linebacker, secondary, running back, receiver and quarterback positions was available aside from the receivers who have been out all spring (Jacob Robertson, Sorrell Brown, Kevin LeDee.
Fritz started his talk with reporters by mentioning that Vince Gibson's son was at practice and praising Vince Gibson for having done a good job when he was Tulane coach. That allowed me to tell him when I was a kid, I had a T-shirt that read "Three out of Four and Going for More" about the Tulane-LSU series in 1983. I also told him how Gibson got fired after beating the ranked Tigers in Tiger Stadium, a game I watched at then Tulane Arena (Devlin Fieldhouse) on a big screen after they invited fans to attend. That was truly a different era. My uptown neighborhood had not been wired for cable yet, something that finally came a few months after Tulane's win in Baton Rouge.
FRITZ
You said you were going to do a lot of special teams today, and you did.
"We did a bunch. We worked on extra points, field goal, extra point and field goal block (all before I got there) and then we worked all of our punt, kickoff, kickoff return, punt block. We are going to do a lot of good on good (11-on-11 scrimmage type work) tomorrow. We're going to divide guys up and get some nice work in tomorrow."
Halfway through spring drills, how do you feel?
"Good. We've just got to keep the guys locked in and focused and not getting ahead of themselves. We've got a lot of practice left to get better, so we need to keep it up."
Where is the offense in terms of progress?
"Pretty good. We're doing a lot of different things, varying snap counts, using a lot of different personnel, a lot of motions and shifts. I really like where we're at right now, but we still don't have everything in."
It looks like running backs are being put at different spots on the field and being asked to do more.
"Yeah, we're really lucky. We've got a bunch of backs who really catch the ball well, so we'll utilize them in the passing game and also split them out wide. A good tell for you is when you get into empty with one back and spread a tight end or a receiver out and they match a guy with a linebacker, they are probably in man coverage, particularly if you've got them out there as your number one receiver. If they go out there with a corner, they are probably in zone coverage. It's a good pre-snap indicator, and we're just working on that kind of stuff."
I will have more from Fritz later. He talked about Wright and Eatherly among other topics. I also will attend tomorrow's practice and provide an update on the depth chart situation and who looks good.
