Spring practice started Saturday, and to welcome it, a brilliant sunny day burned off what was a foggy and dreary morning.
Normally, the U releases a Spring Prospectus--giving position changes, etc, and a Spring outlook. No such document has been released, possibly because the Communications Staff is busy with our Sweet 16 women's hoops team. Anyway, they did release a Spring Roster, and like hungry dogs jumping onto a scrap of food, the Falcon Nation leapt.
Some of this I researched myself, some of it came from a thread on AZZ.com.
First, there had been much talk about players leaving, and in the Fall, rumors that, in fact, defections were way ahead of what was publicly acknowledged. In fact, that is not really true.
We had heard about:
Frericks, Mahoney and Williamson.
Ellis and Rojas.
Thomas James
And that appears to be all of the substantive losses.
Others did leave--but I don't believe any of these players ever showed up on a depth chart:
Scott Goodwin (R-SO LB).
Kevin Colyer (R-SO DB)
Trevor Germany (FR RB).
Kevin Munroe (Fr LB)
Trevon Winston (Fr TE)
Michaels Woods (R-JR DB)
Kyle Wright (R-FR P)
Beyond that, we have apparently shored up the RB position.
Andre Boomer is now an RB. He was a little used WR.
Brandon Mack is an OL. He is a true senior, if that makes any sense. He made 3 tackles on the D-Line last season, and played sporadically the two years before that. At 6'5 283, he has the making of an Olineman.
Lewis Parks was initially recruited as a DL or TE and is now a RB.
The Blade has weighed in with its spring practice story. Pretty common stuff, in fact. ALL the positions are up for grabs...that's an unusual spring move. Brandon hopes he won't have to coach the coaches.
In fact, save for what I am about to relay below, the key to the players appears to be status quo for this spring. With the new coaches, the system can only take so much change.
Now, the Blade article does have this little nugget on special teams. You will recall that our special teams were abysmal last year. Awful. An embarrassment (See my post "The Horror.")
Citizens in the Falcon Nation have noted that the new coaching lineup does not include a special teams coach. I do not understand this. I know that Brandon is not the only coach who doesn't think this part of the game deserves a specialist coach. You will see below where GB outlines his "philosophy" on this.
That's all well and good, if that is your philosophy and all. But you're going to be philosophizing your way out of head coaching if the special teams don't improve.
Here's the plan.
Arguably the team's biggest woes last year were punting and kickoff. Bird will oversee the former and Gonzaga the latter. Hargreaves will be responsible for punt return, while Campbell and running backs coach John Hunter will coach the field goal team.Phillips will focus on field goal block, and tight ends coach/recruiting coordinator Troy Rothenbuhler will be responsible for kickoff return. "That coach can use any player he wants on the team and any coach he wants to help him coach his units," Brandon said.
"As far as naming a coordinator, we don't have a coordinator. My philosophy is you get a coach to handle a unit and be responsible for it."
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