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Football: A sunny practice report
By Jonathan Okanes
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 10:05 pm in Football, off-season stuff.
The sun came out for the first of three daytime Saturday practices to end the spring today, as Cal brought in an officiating crew to oversee a 2 1/2-hour session.
Even though officials were brought in, this was not a scrimmage or even a controlled scrimmage. Saturday’s session was like any other practice, except for the fact that officials got their practice in as well, calling the 11-on-11 sessions as well as drills when it was appropriate.
Today was also one of four spring practices that is open to the media. We were able to watch the first session back on March 11 and will be allowed in for each of the final two Saturdays as well.
A few quick revelations from watching today:
- Kendrick Payne could supplant Derrick Hill as the starting nose tackle. He’s been running with the first unit all spring and was a big factor Saturday, getting in the backfield a handful of times.
- Linebacker Jarred Price is becoming more than just a pass rushing specialist on third down. He lined up with the first team on all downs Saturday.
- Quarterback Beau Sweeney is struggling. In the only action I saw of him at the end of Thursday’s practice, he threw a pass right into the chest of safety Chris Conte. Saturday, he missed a few open receivers.
Today’s highlights included:
- Wide receiver Alex Lagemann made a couple of nice catches, including one diving grab during the hurry-up drill at the beginning of practice.
- Safety D.J. Campbell, filling in for Sean Cattouse (thumb) with the first unit, made a nice play to make a tackle on a running play behind the line of scrimmage.
- Linebacker Charles Johnson recorded a sack of Sweeney. On the very next play, Price and defensive end Mike Costanzo teamed up for another sack.
- The first offense had a perfect play call against a blitzing defense late in practice, but the tight end screen failed when Spencer Ladner dropped a pass from quarterback Kevin Riley.
- Giorgio Tavecchio reached the end zone with a kickoff while Vince D’Amato twice got it to the 3-yard line.
Other notes:
- Right tackle Mitchell Schwartz was held out of practice after his back tightened up on him at the end of practice Thursday. Cal juggled the offensive line in his absence, moving Donovan Edwards from left tackle to right tackle and Matt Summers-Gavin from left guard to left tackle. Coach Jeff Tedford said the team plans on having Summers-Gavin get equal reps at guard and tackle the rest of the spring.
- The domino effect of the offensive line moves: Richard Fisher played left guard an Brian Schwenke was at right guard. Chris Guarnero was still at center. Justin Cheadle was the second right guard, although he also saw time with the other first teamers (as always, these depth charts should be taken in stride during the spring. There is a lot of mixing and matching going on).
- Cornerback Darian Hagan and defensive end DeAndre Coleman were both back on the field after sitting out the two previous sessions to focus on academics. Tedford said their presence was a “Saturday thing” and they could still miss more practice time. He plans on monitoring their academic progress and letting them practice when it’s appropriate.
- Tedford said there is “no change” in the quarterback situation. Riley, Sweeney and Brock Mansion continue to each get equal reps, but the depth chart remains unchanged with Riley at No. 1, followed by Sweeney and Mansion.
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April 4th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Thanks for all of the info, J.O. The best news is that our kickers are putting the kickoffs inside the five yard line. If they can do that consistently this fall, it should have a major impact on our success. Go Bears! Kick it deep!
April 4th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Wait a second, they’re not kicking everyday, and they’re kicking it further. Wow, serious rocket science!
April 5th, 2010 at 4:58 am
last year, tedford said they had no problem kicking it deep, in practice. this is practice, too. i wouldn’t hold your breath until one of them can consistently kick it inside the 5 at gametime.
April 5th, 2010 at 9:27 am
JO – what receivers are getting the second team reps?
April 5th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
rollon- exactly what i was thinking. i’ll wait until game time to see if the kicks can make it in bounds (and if so, inside the 20 or 15). how many kicks made it as far as you say? did all the others fall before the 20?
great news about sweeney. was the sack his problem or the o-line’s problem? is his throwing woes a lack of time allowed by the o-line or just errors on his part? how is riley’s accuracy?
April 5th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
I can comment on Riley’s accuracy without seeing him this spring:
Not accurate.
For examples, see every game last year (except the Stanford game).
With that said, there is still a 100% chance Riley starts every game this season, barring injury of course.
I’d love to blame the play calling and O-line for his performance last year – and those factors did not help – but he’s far below par for the Pac 10.
I’m excited to see the D without Gregory. Maybe Cal will blitz more than once a game now.
Despite my sarcasm, with a better pass rush, improvement at RB, OL, and WR, Cal should be a bowl team this year, especially with the easy non-conference schedule, and 4th-6th in the conference.
Looking forward to 2011, 2012, 2013 with a very competitive team and better scheduling:
2012 – @ Ohio St
2013 – home vs Ohio St and USC.
2014 – Texas
2015 – Texas
April 5th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Actually Riley is accurate when he has some time. The problem last year was he didn’t get much time. The o-line wasn’t good. Considering he didn’t cough up the ball much on turn-overs, that’s very good. Unfortunately he’s not the type to carry the team.
Any way, lets hope Riley matures, gets help from the o-line, the WRs play well and Vereen and company (Yarnway, Briggs, etc.) run as expected.
April 5th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
ya Riley was up there in pass efficiency when we played cupcakes.
April 5th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
We can all say whatever we want to say but at the end of the day Riley is yet to benefit from either a decent OL protection or receivers that can run crisp routes and get open consistently. True he has often missed easy throws, but yet again a lot of times those open looks come few and far between, hence in situations where he is completely out of rhythm, you know something that is kind of important. This is not to make excuses for Riley, just to point out that we can never make a truly fair assessment of Riley’s abilities with the kind of mediocre play we had from our OL and Receivers for the last couple of years.
April 6th, 2010 at 6:00 am
and led the kid roll out of the pocket for chrissakes!
April 6th, 2010 at 9:01 am
going through current blog post withdrawal. not sure if I can make it another day without some sort of golden bear fix.
April 6th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Mustafa is a Bear!
April 6th, 2010 at 10:37 am
D-line looks pretty good with King and Moose as new faces…we just need to get Tiny…that would be a HUGE get. Literally.
April 6th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Wow! That dude massive. Good stuff!
April 6th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Roll, he isn’t only massive, but if he sticks, he’ll be the highest ranked D-lineman since Mebane.
April 9th, 2010 at 11:05 am
Is there a DT position in the 3-4 scheme??