re: Spring Practice News/Discussion Thread

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Surely they'll keep Diggs at corner with how much we'll lose next year in the secondary.

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“Questions?”

How did Jalen do? You had a checklist you wanted to see last week.

“He did a good job. He completed over 50 percent of his passes. I think he had four touchdown passes. I thought he did a really good job. I don’t think he threw any interceptions today, so that was good. He has a good understanding of what we’re doing and did a much better job in the pocket and did a really good job with play action passes.”

What did you see from the running game?

“I think that’s something we definitely need to continue to work on. I don’t think we got enough movement up front. Look, we’re playing against ourselves. So if we really ran the ball good, we’d would be saying ‘Look over at the defense.’ If we gave up too many big plays, we’d be saying ‘What’s wrong with the defense?’ We didn’t give up too many big plays. It was mostly some of the younger players that did it. I think we have to do a better job up front of getting movement on people, finishing plays and finishing runs.”

Where did Minkah Fitzpatrick play?

“He played at safety today. He played at corner for the first six or seven practices, we moved him to safety the last couple of practices and he played at safety today. Trevon Diggs played left corner and Anthony played right corner.”

You said you didn’t have respect for the deep part of the field. What went wrong in the secondary today?

“Well, We have a lot of young players in the secondary that are freshmen playing and they don’t know what they’re doing. That’s what went wrong. It didn’t go wrong, they just don’t know any better. Did you know everything now that you know now when you were a freshman? First semester in college? I’m assuming you went to college, right? So you learned, right? We’re encouraged by what these guys are doing and we just need to keep working with them and it’s their first time out there, a lot of anxiety, not certain about what they’re doing and not playing with a lot of confidence. That’s really to be expected. It gives us all a starting point of where they need to go and what they need to do and I’m sure they’ll learn a lot from it. We’re excited about having the opportunity to work with them.”

I was going to ask about freshmen too, but I think I won’t. How did the running backs perform today? Damien, probably the first one?

“We don’t really have a first one. We don’t have a depth chart. We have what we call a rep chart, which means that we put people in positions and rep them in practice that way. Bo did not scrimmage today. BJ Emmons did not scrimmage today. Damien Harris sprained his foot but did a good job in the scrimmage all day and then we held him out. I don’t know what the prognosis on that will be. I don’t think it’s anything real serious but it may keep him out for a few days. Najee played a lot. Brian Robinson played a lot. Which is good for them. We’re trying Chadarius Townsend at receiver. Josh Jacobs had a little thigh bruise, we held him out but probably could have scrimmaged today. All those guys are guys that can make a contribution to our team and we’re looking for ways that we can use them.”

You mentioned Trevon Diggs at corner. How’s he looking?

“We’re pleased with the progress that he’s made. He’s much more natural playing at corner than when we tried to play him at safety. That’s where he played in high school. Long, he has good toughness. He’s a good tackler. Plays the ball well in the deep part of the field and did a good job of playing man-to-man. I don’t know what we’re going to do with him the rest of the spring. We’ll probably decide something after the end of this (inaudible) scrimmage.”

Defensive front seven. What did you see? What did you like?

“I think we stopped the run OK. I think the big thing we have to work on is pass rush, pass rush lanes, quarterback scrambling, quarterback running. Everybody is worried about getting the sack. They need to worry about forcing the quarterback, pushing the pocket in the middle so he can’t step up and throw the ball, can’t extend plays which means that coverage breaks down in the back and we make big plays. I would say that against the run we were OK, but past that I don’t have a great feel for it without watching the film.”

What did you see from the receiving corps today and Robert Foster?

“Robert did a much better job today. He was very engaged out there today. Made some catches. Calvin Ridley had a big day. I think he has like eight catches or something. Robert had three catches. TJ Simmons had seven catches. The backs had quite a few catches. I was pleased with the receivers. I think that’s one of the areas of concern where we need to make considerable improvement when I talk about consistency in performance. But most certainly, Calvin Ridley had a big day and Robert Foster was good.”

The right side of your offensive line, how does that look?

“Lester Cotton is playing right guard. He probably could play right tackle if we needed him to. Womack is playing right tackle and he’s making progress and doing a good job. Do we need to make improvements at the offensive line? I think probably at all positions, there’s no position on our team where we don’t need improvement. But those guys have been a pretty solid group so far, but again, if I was going to be specific, I think pass protection is something that we really need to improve on, being more physical in the running game  and getting more movement up front are the things that I would say not just today but all spring long that we really want to emphasize with those players.”

[Q&A on proposed rules changes regarding HS coaches at summer camps.]

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It seems like Cotton doesn't want to play guard. That is my guess as to why he stopped playing RG last year, even though he was probably the best player to play the position last year.

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Womack is the only person who may start on our line that wasn't at least a 4 star, so I have no worries.

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