The focus of Tuesday’s practice was blocking, the key fundamental on the offensive side of the ball. We split up our team into two groups yesterday. One group had the OL and TE’s, the other had all of the skill players.

We started the offensive linemen and TE’s out with stance and takeoff mechanics. We emphasized drive steps and upper body positioning during takeoffs. Following some work in the chutes, we moved on to working on the bucket step which we utilize with some of our combination blocks.

We then went back to the chutes to do some drill work on blocking 2nd level defenders. Next, we worked on double team blocking to setup work on combination blocks. We did various ‘live’ drills working on combinations.

It is important to try to get as many reps as possible for run blocking skills this spring since we will not be in full gear again until late July. We will be able to work some pass protection technique in June as we don’t have to be in full gear to work much of that. So, we will load up reps on run blocking skills and try to create a mindset in our front players that we WILL be able to run the football if they take care of their responsibilities.

Offensive Line must have great spring

Our four returning starters on the OL (Josh Gibson, Daniel Slone, Chris Hendrix, and James Lane) must have a great spring to set the stage for the fall. There are some other guys willing to push them and compete for a starting position. Tyler Perkins and Justin Saylor both improved throughout practice yesterday and showed glimpses of being able to compete for a starting spot.

WR Coach Jimmie McCulley led drills with the skill players that included perimeter stalk blocking, basic route running, and ball drills. We only have one RB and a young QB at spring practice as the rest are WR’s. All of our other QB’s and RB’s are playing baseball. Needless to say, we will focus mainly on drills dealing with WR play this spring for our skill players on the offensive side. This can be good, though, as we can really get indepth with some of those guys with blocking skills, route running skills, sight adjustments, releases vs. various coverages, etc. So there is a silver lining to every cloud.

Coach McCulley and the other coaches that worked with the skill players yesterday were impressed with newcomer Elijah Lane’s athleticism and hands. Also, Tyler Ray was mentioned as someone who also had an excellent practice. The coaches stated that John Gillespie looked the best in the blocking drills. We only worked basic 3 step drop routes yesterday (hitch, slant, fade). Since we have so many younger players at the WR position we will need to master these routes before moving on to the some of our intermeidiate and auxiliary routes. After all, player development is a building block process.

Defensive position drills today

Check back tomorrow and see how we did with our first day of defensive position drills. We also plan to do some more “live” tackling at the end of practice. This is our heavy week as will practice Monday through Thursday. Then the next two weeks we will practice on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday to finish up. So far, the weather has cooperated. Here’s hoping the temperatures keep rising and it is nothing but blue skies ahead.