Report from the last Cock practice on 8/14:
Very comfortable evening out there tonight with a nice breeze blowing, and comfortable temperatures. The injury list continues to grow with Nick Prochak coming out tonight in the yellow jersey along with the ones reported from this morning’s practice: Mike West, Andy Boyd, Gerrod Sinclair, Nitron Stork and Leon Gamble. However, Mike Davis removed the yellow jersey tonight and was running full contact with limited reps. It was good to see Mike running the ball again a few times.
Ryan Succop continues to awe the crowd with his field goal kicking. He’s getting the ball through the uprights consistently from 52 yards deep and still has a good margin for error. Charlie Carpenter would be considered his closest competition. Carpenter can kick from just inside the 50 on occasion, but he looks comfortable from inside the 45. Still Charlie misses very few from around the 45, and most of the other kickers are in the center of the uprights from their respective ranges. You can tell that Coach Chatham has already made an impact with the punting and kick return teams. The Special Teams unit worked on punt coverage tonight for about 20 minutes and Coach Chatham used Cory Boyd, Kenny McKinley and Moe Brown as the Punt return players. Moe continues to be inconsistent fielding punts, dropping some and mishandling others. Cory looks like the best of the group right now, although McKinley does a very good job also. Cory was also in a good mood tonight, as you could hear him all over the field yelling and laughing at or with the other players. I think both Cory and McKinley will be our punt returners at different points during the season.
A couple of number changes to pass on if you’re keeping a roster. Eric Norwood is now wearing #40, and Darien Stewart wears #48 now. Someone told me they heard on another site today, that Carlos Thomas was working at safety this morning and wanted to know if that was true. It was an accurate statement as Carlos is now the second unit free safety, and did see some action with the first unit at times. Carlos has the speed and skills to play that position and be a standout, but it will take him some time to get acclimated to the changes from Cornerback. I think this is a good move by the Defensive Coaches. I’ll keep an eye on Thomas’ progress over the next few days and let you guys know how he does.
During position drills tonight, Norwood who had been getting a lot of praise from Coach Lawing on his skills and work last week seems to have had an off night. Eric now knows what it’s like to be on Lawing’s bad side. It started when they were doing footwork drills and Eric couldn’t seem to get the movements down correctly and Coach Lawing chewed on him for a little while. They ran a stunt drill a short time later, and Norwood kept making the wrong read on the Tight End, and Coach Lawing got a little louder, and a bit more “relaxed” with some of his vocabulary. It came to a climax when Coach Hunt asked coach Lawing to let him use the defensive line to run some blocking drills on the Offensive line. He worked half the line at a time, lining up the center, Right Guard, Right Tackle and occasionally lining up a Tight End on either side. Lawing would match up a Nose Guard and End to work against the half O/ Line. Eric kept getting pinched by the outside (tackle and / or Tight End) and wasn’t fighting through the blocks hard enough, and Lawing would chew on his ear like a drill sergeant and make him run through it again. This went on for about 3 reps and finally Lawing yanked Norwood off to the side and “explained” that skills during drills was one thing, but he was going to have to learn to take that to the game with him. He told him that he was not utilizing the drills he’d worked on for over a week, and that he was going to have to step up and be a man quick! On a good note here, the offensive line performed very well doing these drills and Norwood was not the only one that had trouble fighting through the blocks of the offensive line. I saw several white jerseys getting up off the ground while these were going on.
On the far side of the field, the quarterbacks worked on some one-on-ones after they finished the positional drills and unless I’m guessing wrong, Chris Smelley has now worked himself solidly into the number two spot behind Blake Mitchell. Cade Thompson got very few reps during either of the drills tonight, so it seems Spurrier has pretty much made his choice who will lead the Gamecocks this year. This is not etched in stone yet, and is only my observation, but when you get only three reps during one-one-ones and 7-on-7’s and none during 11-on-11 and the guy ahead of you is now taking most of those reps you once got, I’d say you’ve lost your spot on the depth chart. I’d wait until this is made official by Steve Spurrier before telling anyone it’s a done deal, but I would bet you’ll hear that from him soon.
During the 7-on-7 drill, Coach Spurrier lined the team up on the South end 15 yard line, and let the offense go against the defense in the red zone. Blake was up first and after under throwing Freddie Brown to start the drill off, he threw three consecutive scoring strikes to Lanard Stafford in the Middle, and to Cory Boyd in the right corner, and Jared Cook in the left corner. Smelley was a little shaky to start with missing on his first three attempts, but got uncorked on his last attempt by throwing a TD to Marquise Brown in the right front corner. Mitchell got back up again for a second round of plays, and overthrew Cook over the middle. Mitchell came back with two consecutive TD tosses, both to Sidney Rice and both on the same play. A short fade in the left back corner. I was watching these plays through the binoculars, and picked up something I thought was very nice to see. Smelley came over to where Blake was after these two strikes and the two guys banged forearms together and Smelley gave Blake a slap on the helmet. Nice to see these two guys who will undoubtedly be competing for playing time showing some love, and acknowledging the others good performance!
After this the coaches took the ball to the South 25 and the team ran a controlled scrimmage to finish up the night. Blake started out as he ended the 7-on-7 (hot) by throwing a screen pass to Cory Boyd who turned the ball up field for a nice gain of about 18. Blake threw a strike in the middle of the field to Jared Cook for a 10 yard pickup and a short pass over the middle by Moe Brown. At that point the defense took over and moved the offense backwards on the next two plays, sacking Mitchell for a loss of about 12 yards and forced a fumble by Lanard Stafford who recovered the miscue, but lost 4 yards on the play. Smelley came in to take over the offense and after an incomplete pass on the corner to OJ Murdock, Smelley found Bobby Wallace open over the middle for a nice pickup of about 20 yards. OJ Murdock threw a very nice block on Emanuel Cook to get Wallace a few extra yards before being forced out of bounds. Smelley made another nice toss to Mike Davis out in the left flat for a pickup of 12. After an incompletion, Smelley under a big rush spotted Marquise Brown on a comeback down the right sideline and Brown made a nice catch before going out of bounds around the 15, just out of the reach of Aubrey McKay.
Coach Spurrier lined the team up at the North 25 for a few red zone plays at that point, and Smelley took the first set of reps here. Spurrier ran a very nice WR screen pass that the offense executed perfectly, and Marquise Brown picked up 12 yards on the play behind some nice downfield blocking by Stafford and Murdock. Spurrier brought in Syvelle Newton who lined up at a shotgun position with Wallace as the tailback, and Smelley lined up in the slot. Newton faked to Wallace on a draw, and threw a pass to Smelley in the left back corner that Stoney Woodson was able to knock down at the last minute. The final play was with the same alignment, but Smelley lined up as a wide out to the right side this time. Newton rolled to the side Smelley was lined up on and pumped the ball in Smelley’s direction, and then tried to throw a lateral pass all the way back across the field to Bobby Wallace, but the ball was picked off by Eric Norwood to end the scrimmage.
