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Thoughts from the Weekend
CokeGreaterThanPepsi
Member Posts: 7,646
Hello, everyone. I hope this evening finds you well and what not. Anyways, whatever.
So I attended the coaches clinic this weekend and I will keep my thoughts pretty generic so as not to get in trouble for divulging too much insider information. Here are some of the things I found interesting from the clinic portion first, I'll follow up with practice later: (WARNING: TL;DR)
I sat in on the meeting with Chris Strausser because I am no dummie and I know the most important part of any team is the OL. I REALLY like Strausser. He really emphasizes the details on the lines footwork, hand positioning and where their eyes should be at all times. He is very high on the young guys on the team and also the class coming in this year (as am I). I basically don't have many worries about the line going forward because of how they have recruited and getting to see him break down the position.
Devin Burleson is apparently a 4.0 student and wants to double major in math and engineering and work at Boeing. He also is giant and if he can learn how to play football and if he has a mean streak he could be very, very good.
Next I listened to Jonathan Smith go over Quarterback fundamentals. I don't like Smith and don't think he should be the OC, but he does know his stuff about QB play. It was pretty awkward that he was talking about QB fundamentals and had to show clips of Cyler Miles a lot, made me chuckle a bit. If he was our QB coach I would have no problem with him.
One of the interesting things I discovered is that UW was a primary 3 step drop team last year, they only ran a 5 stop drop a handful of times all SEASON last year. I cannot emphasize how sad and depressing that is, but then you realize who was the starting QB and it makes sense. I know we were terrible offensively last year, but that is just such a huge handicap on your offense when you can't run any 5 step drops because your QB does not have the arm to throw those routes. Makes me a bit hopeful that we might see some progress this year in the offense department.
Example of how awful Sark is and a great example of Petersen practicing what he preaches (Don't talk about it, be about it). There was a player on the team last year that was not going to play anymore at UW if Sark was still the coach. The player had a stuttering problem and Steve Sarkisian would MAKE FUN OF HIM FOR IT. He was all set to walk away and then Sark left and Petersen came in. After Petersen got to know him he realized he had a speech impediment and guess what he did? He got him in touch with a speech therapist to work on his stuttering. Christ, it's not that hard you fuck, Sark.
So I attended the coaches clinic this weekend and I will keep my thoughts pretty generic so as not to get in trouble for divulging too much insider information. Here are some of the things I found interesting from the clinic portion first, I'll follow up with practice later: (WARNING: TL;DR)
I sat in on the meeting with Chris Strausser because I am no dummie and I know the most important part of any team is the OL. I REALLY like Strausser. He really emphasizes the details on the lines footwork, hand positioning and where their eyes should be at all times. He is very high on the young guys on the team and also the class coming in this year (as am I). I basically don't have many worries about the line going forward because of how they have recruited and getting to see him break down the position.
Devin Burleson is apparently a 4.0 student and wants to double major in math and engineering and work at Boeing. He also is giant and if he can learn how to play football and if he has a mean streak he could be very, very good.
Next I listened to Jonathan Smith go over Quarterback fundamentals. I don't like Smith and don't think he should be the OC, but he does know his stuff about QB play. It was pretty awkward that he was talking about QB fundamentals and had to show clips of Cyler Miles a lot, made me chuckle a bit. If he was our QB coach I would have no problem with him.
One of the interesting things I discovered is that UW was a primary 3 step drop team last year, they only ran a 5 stop drop a handful of times all SEASON last year. I cannot emphasize how sad and depressing that is, but then you realize who was the starting QB and it makes sense. I know we were terrible offensively last year, but that is just such a huge handicap on your offense when you can't run any 5 step drops because your QB does not have the arm to throw those routes. Makes me a bit hopeful that we might see some progress this year in the offense department.
Example of how awful Sark is and a great example of Petersen practicing what he preaches (Don't talk about it, be about it). There was a player on the team last year that was not going to play anymore at UW if Sark was still the coach. The player had a stuttering problem and Steve Sarkisian would MAKE FUN OF HIM FOR IT. He was all set to walk away and then Sark left and Petersen came in. After Petersen got to know him he realized he had a speech impediment and guess what he did? He got him in touch with a speech therapist to work on his stuttering. Christ, it's not that hard you fuck, Sark.
Comments
Great writeup....thanks for the info!
I completely disagree with what I've seen about Saturday's practice from RoadDawg and Grundle's sources. I personally think if you took anything negative out of that practice from the QB's on Saturday you were likely looking for something to complain about.
I watched the QB's the entire time at practice because they will make or break the season next year and because we REALLY need one of KJCS and Browning to be good for us going into the future. I had a friend there who has been to multiple practices, he told me on the first day of practice that he thought we didn't have a QB this year flat out. So I went into this practice expecting it to be really rough on their part.
I thought they had a great day. In Browning's first play during team period he threw a pass up the sideline to Pettis for about a 60 yard TD. Right now Browning's biggest strength that I saw from that practice is his accuracy and his deep ball, he throws a great one. He has a little low release, but the ball comes out good enough for a college QB and he has really good accuracy for a guy that should still be in HS. By my count he had one throw that was just way off and had no chance of being caught, everything else was reasonable.
KJCS is, imo, going to be the starter based on the one practice I have seen. He really moves well, he has a solid arm and I didn't notice him having many bad throws. He had a really nice deep ball early in practice and he seems to throw well on the run.
Lindquist is what he is, he has a HUGE arm but he just misses his spots at times. He didn't have any glaring awful passes but he missed a chance at a big play on a deep ball and I just don't know if he can be consistent during games. That being said, I will say he does look improved to me from what I saw of him during the Hawai'i game.
I honestly think Browning is the QB of the future, the coaches REALLY like him and his gym rat, film room mentality. The most impressive thing about him is that he didn't seem to be overwhelmed at all by the practice and competition. For a young QB I was very impressed with that. I just don't think he is physically ready for this year. I hope KJCS wins the job because I think he might give us the best chance to win this year.
Random thoughts:
I came in thinking our skill position players suck. I left being optimistic about them. Lenius is going to be a nightmare, he is just so massive and runs so well. They did first and goal work at practice and Browning or KJCS threw a BEAUTIFUL fade. It was perfect coverage but Lenius went up over the DB and snagged it. Thing of beauty.
Pettis, Ross, Mickens, Lenius. I think we will be OK there.
TE needs to be a strength this year. Ajamu had a really good practice, Daniels moved around a lot, almost more of an H-Back at times, Perkins is solid and then they also have Sample who was out. I think they have a really solid group there.
Budda Baker is incredible. Watching his film was insane, you really appreciate him when you get to see the coaches film, he is a force for the defense.
I think one thing to point out about these practices is that they are specific practices for both sides of the ball. The coaches install things for each practice and the team reps it. The offense was clearly working on throwing out of the pocket and deep balls in this practice, they also had a focus session on scramble throws, making sure the WR's know what to do when the play breaks down.
Because the offense is working on just a few things it is VERY easy for the defense to make the offense look bad at times, because the defense can often figure out what is being worked on after a few reps. That being said, the offense won the day and the defense had to run gassers.
I talked to my friend towards the end of practice and flat out told him that I thought the QB's looked really good and he agreed, he said the improvement from the 1st practice to that one was pretty staggering to him.
If anyone has questions about other players, positions or anything else I will do my best to answer! Sorry for going full-blown Tequilla.
What a royal asshole.
Basically I think the OL will be about average this year.