- cold and wet
- the linebackers are wicked fast
- Wilson is ahead of Kimble. Far ahead
- hunt is silky smooth
- Norton hit 4 fg. Two from 27 and two from 37. With lots of leg, made them easily. Considering they were off the wet grass, pretty good.
- punting, ugh.
- the hurry up offense is , hurry up. All QBs executed it well. Should be exciting to watch this year
- AJ Long did not see the field. He is small.
- defense pursuit of outside runs was intense. Very few were turned upfield. The linebackers were there to make the stop most of the time.
- the defense was jacked up and cheering on their teammates very loudly. The offense looked as though someone kicked their dog
- hunt made some nice throws. Accurate and a few were deep. Mostly on the money. Wilson has good zip on his ball. Kimble had trouble making decisions quickly, and ended up getting sacked or scrambling.
- D made a couple great plays on quick outs. One for an interception, another could have been a pick six but was dropped, maybe the wet ball.
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Just my impressions. Others may differ.
Good summary. I agree with all of that.
My take...
Norton looks really solid at placekicker right now. He is getting his kicks off quickly and they were consistently solidly struck into a strong wind, with excellent elevation. It is going to be much harder to block his kicks if he keeps hitting them like he did last night.
Dixon looked good punting the ball. Excellent hang time. It looks like Cole Murphy is the backup punter. Huge dropoff here...he is not really a punter, but a placekicker. If we lose Riley, we are in deep trouble. Hodgkinson, the rugby player, did not get a chance to kick. Not sure if he or Murphy are the backup placekicker right now. Could be Dixon for all I know.
The first team offense played much more than expected. Not sure why, but I suspect it was because they struggled to move the ball, at least against the 1st team defense. The 1st team defense runs well and looks quick. Lots of spirit too. Kelly appears to be in complete control of the SS spot; Desir played with the 2nd team only last night.
Robinson and Welsh look like our best DEs by a large margin. Worried about the interior DL. Crume better be 100% once the season starts. Sloan is really out of shape and struggled. Harvey and Samuels got overwhelmed a lot. Coleman is the best we have right now, Williams and Johnson are okay at best.
We have a big problem with the 4th CB right now. Winfield is playing with the 2nd team now and got beat deep a couple of time badly. Looks lost out there. Of the true frosh CBs, the one that made the most plays and got the most playing time was Juwan Dowels. Cordy made a couple of good plays too.
Hunt threw it well, was not helped by some bad route running. Thought Wilson and Kimble looked confused out there but to be fair to them, they had backup OL blocking for them and rarely had time to make their reads.
The 2nd and 3rd team players played a lot. The ones that stood out to me are about the same list others have mentioned:
Rodney Williams seemed to be in the right spot at the right time almost every play he was on the field, has excellent speed and hits hard. Jon Thomas runs well, fights off blocks nicely and looks like he is close to being ready to contribute right now. Moskal and Franklin also got a lot of PT, I thought Franklin made a few more plays than Colton did.
Phillips got a lot of touches on offense and seemed to make something happen just about every time he touched the ball. Very quick and cuts really well. Hard to tackle in the open field. They used him in a variety of ways. My favorite play was a broken one where Hunt was in trouble, saw Phillips wide near the line of scrimmage and decided to drop it off to him. Phillips saw the ball was coming his way, had the presence of mind to take a glance at the defense, where someone was coming up hard at him. He looked back to the ball and as he stepped into it to catch it, he lost traction on the muddy field and almost fell. I was sure he was going to drop the pass after all this, but he didn't. He caught it, regained his balance, made a quick little hop move to get past the defender charging at him, then high stepped past another defender and cut against the grain for 8 or 9 more yards. He strikes me as a heady, smooth player who you can trust with the ball. Very similar to Brisley last year. With Brisley out, he also served as the top punt returner last night. Did drop the first punt but got it back. Kind of surprised Desir was not the backup here. I guess we are going all in on getting more yardage on punt returns this season.
Steve Ishmael quietly made a number of catches, looks like a fine route runner, really like his hands (has nice technique here, rare for a frosh). Cool customer, looks like he is a junior or a senior already. I think he has moved ahead of guys like Funderburk, Kobena, Lewis and Cornelius. Custis also looked good out there. I believe he was mostly playing TE. Good hands, showed poise when the ball was thrown his way, his blocking needs a lot of work.
West didn't get a lot of touches. Broyld did and played well, looks comfortable out there, caught everything thrown to him. He did line up wrong once...at this point, that is not good but to be fine to him, I think he was working almost exclusively at H back last night. That was his original position last year when he was moved to WR but he was moved outside during the season. There has been an epidemic of issues with out H backs recently (Brisley is hurt, Vant is hurt, Winfield was moved to CB, Cooper decided to transfer). It will be interesting to see what happens here. Phillips would seem the natural person to move here but it looks like the staff wants to use him from the backfield.
Flemming didn't get any looks that I remember but he played and didn't get hurt, so that is a win for me.
Josh Parris has lost a lot of weight. Never thought he was fat but he looks more like a WR than a TE now. I suspect he was asked to lose weight so he could gain some speed. With this and with Custis working with the TEs, looks like they are trying to get more speed at the TE position.
Foy played, as best I could tell, with the 1st unit all the time. Lasker looks like he reformed his body over the summer, moved really well and looked much improved. McGloster is the other 2nd unit OT, he also moved well, looks to be in excellent shape and has a promising future. They are both going to have deal with Ward, who looks like a man among boys when he is out there. With Robinson out with the injury, Palmer worked at LG with the first unit all the time. Miller snaps from the shotgun were good, Emerich struggled some here.
Mitsuuchi was the long snapper on the plays were I could identify the snapper. Looks like he is going to be the top backup here to Rodgers.
It was a pretty nice setup at Fort Drum. Some stands were in place, looked like soldier's wives were manning some booths selling food. Lots of action for the hot dogs ($3 for 2), not so much for the people selling snow cones (it was cold, windy and raining, #hardnosed weather for #hardnosed fans and #hardnosed players). Good to finally see a PX, glad I didn't have any run-ins with the MPs. Thanks to TexanMark and the crew for getting a lowly civilian like me into the event.
