Jags hit practice on Thursday in full pads
Jags prepare to take the field in Texas where they defeated Lamar 26-0 in their first true road game.
Thursday morning, South Alabama hit the practice field in full pads for the first time during spring practice. Head coach Joey Jones was impressed by what he saw and how his team handled the two hour workout.
The team went through several drills including one-on-one drills with offensive linemen vs defensive linemen, running backs and tight ends vs linebackers, wide receivers vs defensive backs, 7-on-7 skeleton passing drills, about 15 minutes worth of inside drills of offense vs defense front line, linebackers and safeties. Plus about 35 minutes of team drills which primarily focused on 3rd-down situations. Overall team practice focused on blitzes and formations.
The special teams portion of practice focused on punt coverage which included individuals working on punt blocking.
Coach Jones commented after practice on what he saw on the field. “There was a lot of spirit today, the guys were getting after it. You like that as a coach, because you don’t want to push them forward, you’d rather rein them in, and I think that’s where we were today. There was some great competition out there, we set it up to run a lot of competitive drills all day long and I thought they reacted well.”
Jones continued talking about some players who stood out. “I thought the defensive line as a whole stood out, and Randon Carnathan is playing really well in that group. They got after it today. Our linebackers were flying around, I saw Jake Johnson make some plays. Offensively I believe that Greg Hollinger stood out today at wide receiver, and C.J. Bennett is playing real well; I think he has really learned the offense, he’s getting rid of the ball quickly and making plays when he has to. I’ve been real proud of him.”
The Jags will round out the first week of practice on Saturday with workouts beginning at 9am. Coach Jones said that it would mostly be a regular practice with some team time at the end. Coach Jones also said that the team was not ready for a full scrimmage yet and that they would only run about 30 plays in the team session at the end of practice.