Wednesday Morning Football Practice Report

USF Football practiced this morning under cloudy skies at the Frank Morsani Football Complex and continued their preparations for their homecoming game this Saturday vs ECU.

Head coach Willie Taggart said during Tuesday’s press conference that he thought the offensive line had their best game of the year on Saturday at Cincinnati, and Co-OC/O-Line coach Darren Hiller agreed.

“We knew we had to step up in the interior of the offensive line against those defensive tackles,” Hiller said. “I thought during the game we did a pretty good job of being physical in there. Overall, we’re getting better with our assignments ...we only had two missed assignments for the entire game so that was pretty good for us.”

Hiller said that LG Jeremi Hall graded out as the best offensive lineman but stated that everyone was pretty close.

“(Center) Cam Ruff, (right guard) Dom Threatt and Hall, those three guys handled the defensive tackles and that was the critical junction in the game I thought,” Hiller said.

With RT Billy Atterbury unavailable for the foreseeable future, Marcus Norman will step into the RT position that he had going into game one vs Towson. Norman had been practicing at LT prior to Atterbury’s injury.

True freshman Logan MacDonald, who missed all of training camp with an eligibility issue, will be the back up LT and converted defensive lineman Eric Mayes will back up Norman.

“[Logan] is very gifted from an athletic standpoint, the biggest thing with him is we gotta get a little weight on him,” Hiller said. “He’s got a nasty demeanor to him and he plays with good technique.”

Defensive coordinator Raymond Woodie was happy that the turnovers piled up for the Bull Sharks on Saturday.

“I’m just really excited that the kids are transferring it from practice to the field,” Woodie said. ‘It’s always a joy when you work on things in practice and you see transfer in game-time situations.”

Injury News:

Woodie said Nichols had a good practice today and could’ve practiced yesterday but was held out for precautionary reasons.

Hudson suffered an undisclosed injury Saturday at Cincy but was out there today on kick return coverage. Woodie said he doesn’t anticipate Hudson missing the game on Saturday though.*

Taggart was unsure which thumb it was yesterday and now we know.

*Take with grain of salt

Noteworthy:

So far every USF sport will be held as scheduled but the administration will keep tabs on the path of Hurricane Matthew and update accordingly.