After an off day Sunday, Coach Holtz decided to go with two practices as the team gets ready to head back to Tampa tomorrow.
- Biggest news from the morning practice was that Armando Sanchez has moved back to linebacker after spending most of the spring and summer working at fullback. As I noted on Sunday, freshman Tye Turner did well at fullback when given the chance, and Holtz gave Sanchez the opportunity to switch back to linebacker if he wanted to. While I don't think we see Armando playing a whole lot at linebacker this season, his impact on special teams will be felt and who knows if we would have seen him there if Turner didn't step up in fall camp.
- Skip singled out seven freshmen who will most likely burn their redshirts this season. According to Adam Adkins, CB Kenneth Durden, DE Antoine Pozniak, DT Elkino Watson, OL Darrell Williams and Thor Joswiak, and WR Andre Davis and Ruben Gonzalez will all play barring any drop in form. Surprised to see Tye Turner not part of that list, but he might be a given at this point.
- On that same article, it looks like there are some injuries popping up on the team and a handful of players held out of both practices. The big ones were Mark Popek, Cory Grissom and Quenton Washington who came down with an illness today. Jerrell Young also injured a finger in the morning practice, but I couldn't find out if he missed the afternoon practice was able to participate in the afternoon practice.
- With Popek out for today's practice I was interested to see who would step up at left tackle. I'm not surprised that Jeremiah Warren slide over to tackle with Damien Edwards nursing a shoulder injury as well. Warren started at tackle two seasons ago before sliding down to guard. I am surprised to see John McGhin slide over to LG instead of Chaz Hine moving to guard and Kevin McCaskill working at center. Skip might want Chaz to get as many reps at center as possible, and it also gives McGhin a chance to work with the first team.
- Greg Auman sat down with Jerrell Young, and he has a pretty big prediction with this season's secondary. Jerrell stated that this year's secondary is better than the 2007 group that featured Nate Allen, Mike Jenkins, and Trae Williams. If Jerrell is that confident, I wouldn't be surprised to see some pretty exotic blitzing schemes this season.
- Andrea Adelson spoke with OC Todd Fitch on the offense yesterday, and it looks like Lindsey Lamar is the first to move back to tailback. Fitch stating that there are 8 solid WR has to make you smile a little bit. In regards to running back, Demetris Murray is still a little bit ahead of Darrell Scott, but he considers both co-starters.
- Jon Santucci of TCPalm.com has a great story up on the advantages to having your fall camp away from campus. From building team chemistry to getting the playbook down pat, the week and a half at the VBSV has been well worth it. The part where players asked to miss curfew to study film is awesome to see.
- GoUSFBulls.com has a nice article up on DT Keith Mccaskill. Its good to see Keith finally get a starting position after working hard as a backup the last two years. There are a couple of nice videos for you to watch as well.