.
My notes from this morning’s practice.

General

The players were in “shells” today, which means helmet and shoulder pads with shorts (even though the team was wearing hybrid shorts that were a step away from being full gear, look at some pictures).
Being in shells meant a lot more running the ball and somewhat more contact on a majority of the plays.
The practice was split up into three main sections. A group running drill (DBs and WRs were off on their own), a group passing drill (OL and DL were off on their own), and a team drill which was offense versus defense in a game-like situation.
S Jeremy Cash and S Jamie Wood joined DE Solomon Thomas in the yellow limited participation jerseys today, while CB Doran Grant did pushups with them near the end of practice rather than participating in the team drills.
Against my natural tenancies, I tried to focus more on the offense today than the defense, so I will share some information on the QBs and RBs that I missed in previous practices.

Defense

The starting group remained unchanged from previous practices and the lineup appears set other than the rotations noted below.
The competition for the 2nd CB spot continues between Bradley Roby and Dominic Clarke, who split time with the ones throughout practice.
Adam Bellamy, Garrett Goebel, and Johnathan Hankins continue to rotate at DT and DE at times, and occupy different spots depending on the look they are in.
DC Jim Heacock got on Adam Bellamy multiple times today, which in my mind reinforces how much is expected of him in the DL rotation this season.
Nathan Williams and JT Moore continue to rotate at LEO with the 1s.
Freshman DL Michael Bennett has apparently worked his way up and was playing DE with the second team all practice, along with fellow freshman Joel Hale who was with the 2nd team at DT.
Freshman LB Curtis Grant was more vocal in calling out the pre-snap reads for the 3rd team defense today than in previous practices, but the game clearly hasn’t “slowed down” for him yet.
S Corey Brown got time with the 2nd team defense.

Since there are 4 QBs and 3 offensive teams rotating through, the quarterbacks rotated straight down the line so that each one got a chance to play with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd groups during all of the drills.
Carlos Hyde and Jordan Hall split time with the 1s at RB today.
Jaamal Berry and Rod Smith split time with the 2s.
Boom Herron and various other backs spent time with the 3s.
All of the running backs had their moments, and this isn’t breaking news, but the ground game should be very solid this season if the passing game can keep defenses just a little honest.
The starting offensive line remained the same as in previous practices.
Freshman OL Antonio Underwood was the 2nd team RT today with Tommy Brown playing RT with the 3rd team. Mikes Adams was the 2nd team LT and Chris Carter was the LT with the 3rd team.
Philly Brown and Verlon Reed continue to be the starters at WR.
The 2nd group of WRs was: Devier Posey and T.Y. Williams on the edge with Chris Fields in the slot.
There was a lot of pre-snap motion today on offense, with players in the backfield splitting out wide as the most popular movement.
The team spent quite a bit of time on screens today with various players getting the ball, including but not limited to Jordan Hall (split out wide) and Philly Brown on slip screens.
During the team running drill, Braxton Miller didn’t receive any reps, instead he was receiving one-on-one coaching on the other field.

During a screen drill, the team practiced group celebrations in the endzone. This will clearly not be a part of game days, but they had fun with it.
The team ran gassers all together at the end of practice, which Chris Carter unsurprisingly struggled mightily with.
There was some pretty hard hitting going on today considering that full pads aren’t until tomorrow.
WR Coach Stan Drayton continues to run on the field during plays to encourage players to finish strong, today his target was freshman WR Evan Spencer.

Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!