Thanks for the great report.

Earl Thomas WAS everywhere. We are going to like watching him play at the 40 acres. Also, it looks like he and Ben Wells are pushing each other, b/c Wells was pretty good also. One guy would be on the field and make a play, or hit someone, then the other guy would replace him and do something just as good.

Beasley pretty much shut down everyone he was covering. He made a great play covering Quan on a sideline GO route.

Chiles did make a nice pass to Cap’n Kirk for that TD. Did you see who was covering him on that play? I thought it was Palmer, but most of the DBs had their jersey’s pulled up like they were wearing belly shirts, plus I was on the other side of the field, so it was hard to get the jersey numbers. Also, the safety was way out of position; any idea who that was?

More Chiles: I almost think that he got more snaps than Colt and Harris combined. He is uncomfortable in the pocket. Takes a ton of time making up his mind where to throw the ball. Some passes were good, some were still at the WRs feet. His best play was on a bad snap – the ball hit the ground, and he quickly picked it up, found a TE over the middle, and rifled it in there. He’s much better when he plays without thinking

During warm ups, it looked like Harris had the nicest spirals and deep passes. Against air he was money. On the few possessions against defenders though, he struggled. Chiles’ mid range passes are getting better. He really puts the ball on a rope. His deep balls tend to flutter and die. The talent is there, and to me it looks like the coaches are dedicated to making him a quaterback. I dont know how economical this is, since Gilbert arrives next year. But he did have a nice pass while rolling out on a bootleg.

WRs: this group was a non factor tonight. They were blanketed the whole time, and aside from that TD to the Cap’n, I didn’t see anyone getting separation downfield. If there isn’t much improvement we may need to become a running team. As for WIlliams v. Buckner, they looked to be similar in height, I dont remember who was bigger though. Phil Payne looked pretty jacked. Also looked really agile in the warm up drills, so he’s one of those guys with TREMENDOUS UPSIDE POTENTIAL, to quote Jay Bilas.

As for who started on defense, I would put no stock in who “started” and who played with whom. Muschamp rotated those guys like crazy, and I think he was just mixing stuff up. He played 3 linebackers pretty often, which I dont think we’ll see in the regular season against all those spread offenses.

Kindle had a great play, where he blitzed from the outside and just DETONATED Fozzy, en route to a sack of Chiles. It was like watching a paper bag get hit by a train.

That’s it, that’s what I saw. If I missed something, or have factual errors, I freely admit I have no idea what I’m looking for. This is just what I saw, colored by opinion. My football experience ended at 9th grade, where I was starting at Left Out for 3 years. Oh yeah, Rashad Bobino is a really cool dude. Let’s not go overboard on bashing this year.

Thanks to everyone who made it to practice. The working stiffs of the world salute you! Great to hear that Chiles has, from the sound of it, vastly improved his passing game in the off season. Any threat at all will keep defenses honest!

And naturally I had to be amongst those out there taking in live football in pads. An interesting observation I had were that the second and third team offenses (led by Chiles and Harris respectively) both seemed to break out a wrinkle that we’ve seen from a number of teams of late (Tony Franklin’s auspicious Auburn debut is one such example. I’m sure there’s a few other huge examples my road weary brain is missing; 20 hours of driving will do that to you) where by which after lining up, the entire team looks to the sideline to receive a series of signals, makes minor adjustments (a player in motion perhaps, or a shift here and there) before quickly executing the play ushered in from the coaches in the distance. Interestingly enough the signals seemed to be almost exclusively originating from the mind (and subsequently hands) of one Major Applewhite; perhaps his impact on the offense will be greater than first imagined. It didn’t appear, however, that Colt and co. ever turned to this form of “semaphore” offensive play calling.

Really? It sounds like we’ve got a lot up our sleeves for having so many young players to teach.

Buckner is the tallest WR we have and I just cant believe all the talent we have waiting in the wings at that position…sick!

I really didn’t see much separating between the two. Williams did look a little faster, but both make catches look so easy. They were both very solid.

Sam Acho had one huge play where he blew past Tray Allen and got to Fozzy AS Chiles was handing the ball off to him. Same and Tray had a little scuffle earlier in the scrimmage I believe.

Worstfan is right, Shipley looked JACKED.

Chiles lined up as receiver a couple of times. But in all honestly, it was very hard to the offense to do anything with Sergio and Thomas shutting things down before they could even get started. I don’t think it’s any question that Sergio will have the starting job once the season starts.

FAU might have an offense. But they are still a Sunbelt team and their D-line should get smashed by our O-line.

Fozzy gets 2 TD’s, Vondrell gets 2, and Chiles gets one rushing to go along with Colt’s 2 passing.

Final score Texas 49 FAU 17

Ketch was so excited about so many different things; I must admit I got a halfie while driving down Lamar.
-Sergio sacked the QB on both of his first 2 plays of practice, absolutely blowing up/through McGee and Fozzy on the way there.
-Chiles looked promising most of the time. Encourages the implementation of a scaled-down Wildhog package for him.
-This is probably the fastest team Mack has ever had, even faster than the 05 team. Speed at every position, and it was exciting.

With all the hype surrounding Aaron Williams during recruiting, nobody ever mentioned that Blake Gideon was the MVP in that district

Gideon is an extremely smart DB with very good size and speed. Plus he enrolled early and already has worked with Muschamp in the spring. I saw him play in high school last year and am not surprised he’s already in there. Scott Ware potential in this guy

The starters on D tonight were:

DL: Melton, Miller, Houston, and Rak
LB: Kindle, Bobino, Muck
CBs: Beasley and Palmer
Safeties: Earl Thomas and Ben Wells.
In nickel situations Christian Scott went to safety and ET covered the slot reciever.

I mentioned yesterday that I thought Wells was good. Looks like the coaches agreee, since they had him on the first team.
Earl Thomas….what can I say? He had a badass diving interception tonight. I give him an 50% chance to be our next Thorpe award winner. It would be 100, but Beasley might get there first. Anyways, he’s only a RS Frosh and he is already starting to ball hawk.

If the above guys were to be our starting D on Aug 30, I would feel really good. The only concern is that the 2ndary, save Palmer, are young and kinda skinny. When Vondrell and Fozzy Bear got to the 2nd level, the kids took some punishment.

Offense: The passing game may be a concern. Colt kept throwing five yard passes to whomever was standing in front of him. I had flashbacks to the 4 pick game vs KSU. He also got called for sacks twice during the 7on7 drills b/c he held the ball too long. Chiles threw 2 picks, but he seemed to want to get the ball down the field. He threw a little high and a little behind sometimes.
It might be that our DBs are really good, the WRs are not stepping up, the QBs are not doing a good job, or a combination of all three. Either way, they really need to get after it.
Running game looked very nice. OL was out there to kick ass. Fozzy Bear had another breakaway TD. The run game included multiple misdirection plays with Chiles as a runner or a decoy. Kindle lit up some poor RB up on a stretch play and forced a fumble.

Last thing. I got an up close and personal view of Malcolm Williams one-on-one with Beasley for a few plays. On the first, Malcolm beat Beas and had a couple of steps on an inside seam route that would’ve been a touchdown, except Colt was busy throwing a 3 yard out to the opposite side. On the next, Beasley made a great play on a pass intended for Malcolm and broke it up.