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Spring Game notes
Posted by ChrisApplewhite on April 6th, 2009 under Football
Or, rather, note. There is only one thing worth talking about, and that thing is our completely disgusting secondary.
The offense was vanilla, obviously, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many check downs in a spring game before. There was just nothing available. Brown, Beasley and Williams might make up three of the best corners we’ve ever had at the same time. Curtis Brown is talented but you can tell he doesn’t really know what he’s doing yet. He’ll make one good play, then get completely turned around the next.
It’s hard not to get excited. Deon Beasley decided to fight for his job and might just earn it back. The only two thrown his way were under his close and personal supervision. He’s got to be the quickest player on the team. Chykie Brown only gave up one catch, a 30 yard fade that landed out of bounds. I’d like to see him not coast at the beginning of plays. WRs can get behind him because he jogs for the first 3-4 yards. He’s got the make up speed, but that’s why there is always a shot or two against him every game.
I didn’t really notice Aaron Williams, which is a good thing.
In the back we’ve only got one good (proven) player, Earl Thomas. The good news is twofold. One, Thomas is electric. His play of the day was jumping a short slant from Colt and taking it to the house. Safeties don’t do that type of thing. He was all over the field cleaning up other people’s messes and providing good coverage. He’s not the type of person you’d want covering WRs (Aaron Williams was in the slot, mostly) but put him on a TE or as a rover and he’s dynamite personified.
Two, Christian Scott was probably the second best safety. He’s fast, aggressive and brings a load. He ran down Malcolm Williams on a crossing route, from behind, and still managed to deliver a blow. H played with Thomas for the majority of the day and I hope he starts.
Gideon was Gideon, but he did have a very nice pass break up. He then ruined it by doing that white boy head down trot. You know the one. “I’m white so I have to play it cool, but I know what I just did.”
Ben Wells played with the walk ons, so I guess it’s Chinatown for him. Not sure what’s missing there.
There was a slot of switching and communication going on during the plays. We’re comfortable with the scheme, and it was very impressive to watch. No blown assignments (stark contrast to last year) and nothing available past 15 yards aside from a couple nice corner routes by Brandon Collins. We’re going to rival Florida for the best secondary in the country (which I think we’ll end up having), and we know what that means. Big Game Bradford.
Having watched the secondary, assuming that people could catch a replay on TV and see the rest for themselves, I can only offer fleeting glimpses of any other players.
- Vondrell, other than an early fumble, looked fantastic. Fozzy is the best back on the team and did nothing to disprove that, but McGee was cat quick. He embarrassed Curtis Brown at one point, juking him so badly that my jock fell off.
- Sherrod Harris needs work. His mechanics and accuracy are there, but he’s not in sync with the offense. He has 6 months to work on that before it’s too late.
- Greg Smith dropped all three passes thrown to him.
- Malcolm Williams will have a big year. I’m calling that one.
- Ben Alexander is OK. I noticed him for the first time getting pushed 6 yards out of the way on a TD run, but he made up for it later. Not a pass rusher, obviously.
- Speaking of the pass rush, only Dravannti Johnson of all people did anything there. Our protection was solid as a whole. Sergio Kindle didn’t play.
- Kheeston Randall might be an option. Lamaar Houston was good, but after him, Randall was the best DT. He’s athletic enough to make noise, if not the play, which is all we need.
- The offense was even more vanilla than usual. I think they only ran a couple pass play, and the usual gamut of running plays. I want to say the run defense looked good, which it did, but I think we all know what’s going on there.
- Mack addressed the crowd again, pregame. I think he’s starting to get the spotlight itch or something. Look out for a prima donna season from him.
- Hunter Lawrence had a huge day. Not only did he nail a three year old in the endzone with a practice kickoff, he made a tackle on a real kick inside the 30 yard line. And he ran the returner down, too. Not sure I’ve ever seen that happen before.
- The snow cone man earns an F- from me for standing right in front of my row all afternoon. My vision was blocked for a good 15 minutes in total while every kid in the place stood in my way.
- Didn’t personally see any recruits, but Lache Seastruck and Darius White were there.
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Farmer Ted commented on the blog post Chase Daniel makes The Economist 47 seconds ago
I find it impossible to hate Chase Daniel. I used to try really hard to hate the guy, mostly because he was shredding the Husker secondary. But he seems like a good dude (who just happened to have arguably the greatest job in the world for the past 9 months). There used to be talk
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Seeing Red commented on the blog post Lucky 8 minutes ago
Fantastic write-up. I always thought Marlon ran harder than people gave him credit for. His freshman year, it seemed like time & again he was grabbed as soon as he got the pitch or the handoff but managed to turn 3-5 yard losses into one yard gains.
He never had the breakaway speed or top-notch elusiveness
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skymonkeyhorn commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 24 minutes ago
Barbee on the grill is like the sun gleaming on the Rio Bravo in the morning next to the taco stand by Riverside. ” I cry like a baby” when I heard about UTEP.
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Kevin Berger commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 34 minutes ago
Marquette is so fun to watch.
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Kevin Berger commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 38 minutes ago
I picked murray state so utep could beat them in the second round. Looked good at half.
Fuck tony barbee. Mainly because skymonkey loves him.
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skymonkeyhorn commented on the blog post Final Four Prediction 38 minutes ago
“I Cry like baby” When I think of Texas.
“The Letter” from fuck chalk says FF.
RIP“The country roads take me home” WVU points to FF.
“The blues” of Dukies. FF
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J Rog wrote a new blog post: A Magic Show in Orlando 43 minutes ago
As suspected a tough game in the second half of a back to back results in a loss for the Spurs. Might as well make it a law of physics.
The Spurs lost this one in spectacular fashion 110-84 in a game that honestly they barely showed up for. They looked tired and sluggish from the
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skymonkeyhorn commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 56 minutes ago
Fuck the Dance, and Kevin Berger is a Bitch !
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Patrick Bateman commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 1 hour, 32 minutes ago
UTEP going down in flames. If Texas loses tonight, then someone will need to make sure Trips isn’t face down in a ditch somewhere….
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Seeing Red wrote a new blog post: How To Make Your Woman a Football Fan 2 hours, 6 minutes ago
Many thanks to Larry Burton over at Bleacher Report for providing advice on how to turn your sports-hating significant other into a college football nut.
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I.M. Hipp commented on the blog post Lucky 2 hours, 8 minutes ago
Pete is right about Marlon’s running style, Lucky needed to have the ball in space to be effective at all. I think he had a nice career overall though, keep in mind he did have those injury issues his senior year.
Good player who should have looked out for himself and left early.
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D W commented on the blog post March Madness open thread 3 hours, 40 minutes ago
Now Baylor talking trash to the #14 seed players. Seriously?
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ghostofagroundgame commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 3 hours, 43 minutes ago
If Sam Houston State wins then Rick Barnes will have trick-fucked me in a completely unexpected way. I figured if Baylor beat us like a drum three time then should be able to ease past Sam Houston State. I did not know about the Rec Specs.
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gingerballs commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 3 hours, 46 minutes ago
Sam Houston attempting to one up Murray St.
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gingerballs commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 3 hours, 48 minutes ago
WOW, way to shit the bed Stallings….again
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Triston27 commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 3 hours, 50 minutes ago
Wow. Fortunately I had Vandy losing Saturday anyway.
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gingerballs commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 3 hours, 55 minutes ago
Murray….present!
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CloseToJumping commented on the blog post March Madness open thread 4 hours, 2 minutes ago
If Baylor fails, my grand scheme of Purdue playing for it all will immediately begin to take shape.
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ghostofagroundgame commented on the blog post Beat the Barkers NCAA Tourney Bracket 4 hours, 6 minutes ago
Freaking BYU.
Otherwise, I’m 2-1.
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CloseToJumping commented on the blog post Beat the Barkers NCAA Tourney Bracket 4 hours, 13 minutes ago
Yeah, that Purdue pick was awesome. It seems like I heard something about them having injuries, but it slipped my mind when making picks. I’ve literally not seen them play for one second this season. Not a highlight, nothing. Good work.
1-2 to start things off, I think it’s clear I’m going to own this thing.
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ghostofagroundgame commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 4 hours, 51 minutes ago
Man, Sam Houston State is playing Baylor perfectly. Rec Specs is running the paint. And I always love teams with short guys who jack threes.
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ghostofagroundgame commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 5 hours, 4 minutes ago
And they have a dude with rec specs.
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Trips Right commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 5 hours, 4 minutes ago
Sam Houston State with a triangle and two to stifle Baylor. I’m going to vomit
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ghostofagroundgame commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 5 hours, 4 minutes ago
Sam Houston State is like Tom Penders’ wet dream.
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Art Vandelay commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 5 hours, 6 minutes ago
MMOD is beating me down with the Ivan brothers.
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ghostofagroundgame commented on the blog post March Madness open thread 5 hours, 6 minutes ago
ND proved that the old tried and true, anti-Duke theory about how teams that rely on unathletic white dudes who have to get to the foul line and/or make a alot of really ugly right-handed layups never win in the tourney.
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ghostofagroundgame commented on the blog post March Madness open thread 5 hours, 7 minutes ago
Man, I can’t believe that Florida game. Their team actually appears to be DUMBER than ours.
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Vasherized commented on the blog post March Madness Open thread 5 hours, 9 minutes ago
We need to send our guys to Baylor’s School of Hard Dunks.
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Triston27 commented on the blog post Big Dance: Day One 5 hours, 12 minutes ago
Dollar $igns!
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Art Vandelay commented on the blog post March Madness open thread 5 hours, 15 minutes ago
Great start to the tourney. Two OT games and a one point ND loss.
Yeah – a bunch of half ass bowl games is a much better idea.
Parlin Hall said:
April 6th, 2009 at 7:09 am
The snow cone guy can cover and disrupt? Get him a jersey.
Ecurbmanchild said:
April 6th, 2009 at 9:31 am
From everything I am hearing on DT, the secondary better be all world. I think the offense was affected by the vanilla play calling and the wind. Otherwise, the offense totally sucked.
Scipio Tex said:
April 6th, 2009 at 9:50 am
We’re in a agreement on the secondary. Just a crazy talented group with more help on the way. We’re going to able to challenge straight passing offenses in a way that we haven’t been able to do in years.
The spread really thrives off of putting enough WRs on the field until you have to match them with a couple of bad coverage guys. It exploits bad DB depth, which is common throughout football at levels. When you’ve got as many guys who can play as we do, that option just isn’t there.
If we get beat in the passing game, it will be off of play action by an OU/OSU type offense when we have to overcommit to the run to make up for our front 7.
Beaten Dead Horse said:
April 6th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Gideon was Gideon, but he did have a very nice pass break up. He then ruined it by doing that white boy head down trot. You know the one. “I’m white so I have to play it cool, but I know what I just did.”
You still pissed about the busted hand dumbass?
Hookah Horns said:
April 7th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
“Gideon was Gideon, but he did have a very nice pass break up. He then ruined it by doing that white boy head down trot. You know the one. “I’m white so I have to play it cool, but I know what I just did.”
You’re the dumbest motherfucker on the internet and I’m nearly ashamed to follow the same team as you.