As the second week of camp begins, positional battles are starting to take shape. At cornerback, any thoughts that Lo Wood could make a run at KeiVarae Russell’s starting job were put on ice yesterday by head coach Brian Kelly, who called Russell the clearcut starter. At quarterback, it’s looking very obvious that a 1-2-3 pecking order is being established, with fans of Malik Zaire likely waiting until ’14 for a chance to see him if all goes according to plan.
With interesting battles at safety, offensive line, running back and inside linebacker all continuing to play out, let’s get into the way-too-detailed breakdown of yesterday’s practice report courtesy of UND.com.
0:13 -- Great texture to Jack Nolan‘s ND golf shirt, with the face of UND.com getting a sneaky weather report in while teeing up the action. (For those sticklers, I am aware that Jack’s calling this the 8th practice while we’re calling it Day Six. I’m guessing it’s because the team did two two-a-day sessions.)
0:30 -- It’s Sheldon Day breaking the team down before they get to work. A day after writing about Brian Kelly’s heaps of praise for the sophomore defensive end, I continue to be fascinated by what Day’s emergence could mean for this defense as a whole.
(Friend of the program, Rotoworld’s Evan Silva, compared Day to current Bengals star Geno Atkins. That’s high praise, and there are a lot of similarities between the two of them, including body type.)
From a personnel perspective, Day could add to the handful opposing coaches face when dealing with the Irish front seven. Everybody knows about Stephon Tuitt and Louis Nix, but sleeping on Prince Shembo is a mistake, and today’s video gives you an idea of the improvement of Ishaq Williams. Throw in a wildcard like Jaylon Smith, who could come off the edge with 4.4 speed, and the Irish might have their most vaunted pass rush in years.
0:44 -- Almost on cue, Prince Shembo and Day run a defensive line stunt that gets Shembo to the fictional quarterback in a hurry. With Prince in a three point stance, it looks like Day would slide inside, giving the Irish the opportunity to have Day, Tuitt and Nix all be interior pass rushers while Ishaq Williams could slide down to the other end position.
0:49 -- TJ Jones makes a nice catch on a deep ball to the end zone. We don’t have the benefit of seeing who actually threw the pass, but whoever did has nice touch.
0:55 -- Sophomore receiver Chris Brown takes a quick pass from Tommy Rees and cuts up field. (That ball will likely come out faster during the actual games.)
0:57 -- Fancy editing won’t slow me down: Walk-on Nick Fitzpatrick (38), Luke Massa (14), Corey Robinson (88), freshman Will Fuller (15), Massa again, and CJ Prosise (20) make catches.
1:01 -- All-American Zack Martin (70) wins another one-on-one rep with Stephon Tuitt (7) in a pass rushing drill. (A quick soap box speech. Just because you’ve seen three reps of Tuitt vs. Martin this spring, all of which seemed like Martin victories, doesn’t mean anything is wrong with Tuitt. It could just mean that Martin is very, very, very good. Again, these are the problems with practice videos. One guy looking good means another guy looks bad.)
1:05 -- Prince Shembo hunts for a quarterback. Cam McDaniel (33) bursts through a nice hole. Freshman wideout James Onwualu (17) has an inside step on Jalen Brown and beats him for the catch. Andrew Hendrix (12) pulls the ball down and runs. (Interestingly, he’s taking live hits.)
1:12 -- Justin Utupo (53) gets stood up by a blocker. (Tough to tell who.)
1:16 -- Here’s another good look at freshman wideout Will Fuller (15). You can tell he needs to put a little meat on his bones, but the staff thinks they’ve got a guy who can run the top off a zone that also catches everything.
1:21 -- That’s an explosive rep by Ishaq Williams (11), beating what looks like Ronnie Stanley (78) off the edge, with a little help from Jarron Jones (94).
1:26 -- That’s a really impressive move by Kona Schwenke (96), blowing by Christian Lombard (74) and getting to the quarterback.
(While listening to Irish Sports Daily’s Power Hour podcast last week, analyst Sean Mele pointed out that Lombard’s troubles come when he stops moving his feet. That looked to be the case again here, though credit Schwenke for a nice move as well.)
1:32 -- Chris Brown (2) beats Max Redfield (10) off the jam in man coverage and connects on a deep throw. Redfield bit hard on the inside move, helping Brown get separation. It’s doutbful a young safety ever gets put on an island in man coverage, but the silver lining seems to be Redfield’s speed, as he caught up with Brown, who might be the fastest guy on the roster.
1:38 -- There’s some nice zip on that deep out by Tommy Rees to TJ Jones.
1:42 -- A lot of contact between Onwualu and KeiVarae Russell (6) on a pass that sails incomplete. From a defensive perspective, that’s a nice rep by Russell. From an offensive perspective, Onwualu might deserve a flag for contact down field. But it’s good to see Russell get physical with a bigger receiver, giving credence to the reports that Russell is bigger, stronger and more comfortable in man coverage.
1:50 -- Center Nick Martin (72) does a nice job handling Louis Nix (1) in the trenches. We’ll get into it more later today, but it seems like Kelly already feels really comfortable with Martin at center.
1:53 -- Matthias Farley (41) takes CJ Prosise (20) to the ground. Ishaq Williams (11) gets to the edge against Troy Niklas (85) in a pass rush drill. James Onwualu (17) and KeiVarae Russell (6) do battle in the open field. Isaac Rochelle (90) battles Ronnie Stanley (78). Lo Wood (23) stays tight on Davaris Daniels (10), before Daniels gets inside and makes the catch.
2:02 -- That’s freshman Greg Bryant (1) cutting to daylight before being tackled, while fellow freshman Tarean Folston (25) makes a catch out of the backfield.
2:06 -- Another Zack Martin (70) and Stephon Tuitt (7) battle. Martin holds up once again, though he gave up some room to Tuitt.
2:10 -- That’s the type of explosive pass rush Irish fans want to see out of Ishaq Williams (11) as he blows by Ben Koyack (18) to the inside.
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