Second Spring Practice - Tom Herman Press Conference

[Will Baizer]

I didn’t get to go to the open practice, but really there isn’t much to glean off those at all beside who runs out first and who maybe might kinda be a starter. I did however make it to Tom Herman’s presser to hear him speak about his impressions of the team after the first couple days of practice.

Tom Herman started off with some news on Jason Hall: 

“Jason Hall has a fairly significant strain to his hamstring, so will likely miss the rest of spring ball, but we expect him back for summer conditioning. Non-surgical. Nothing like that. A pretty good pull that needs some time off and some rehab.”

Was it easier to get through the first part of practice this time than Monday?

“Easier. Not easy, certainly, but easier. After the stretch part though, we were a little sluggish. I talked to the team after practice. I thought it might have been because they thought day one might have been ‘hey this is day one, set the tempo’ kind of deal then we’re going to let up. They need to know that we never let up. They responded pretty well at the end of practice. As tired as they were, they were flying around pretty good.”

Nobody standing out good or bad yet? 

“Nope. For as long as you guys are here, I’m never going to comment on anybody’s performance in shorts. It’s not football. We’ll wait and see. Tuesday after spring break will be a good indication of who stands out and who doesn’t.”

What is your message to the team about spring break?

“Be safe. You hear horror stories all the time over spring break. I told them today we’re on a mission, and that mission doesn’t press pause because you get a week off of school. Our culture needs to spread beyond just the building and the practice field. It needs to be in real life. If you’re with your brother, take care of your brother. If you’re alone or go home with friends, be smart. Our coaches will be in constant communication with them.”

Is there anything to be taken from who lines up first in these drills?

“No. I think you’ve got to line up with 22. We’re doing a lot of rolling in and out, too, with the guys that don’t jog out there the very first snap. They’re rolling in pretty good, especially at the skill positions, the secondary, the d-line, and so on. Again, we’ll know a lot more after the pads come one.”

How about the quarterbacks? You get to see how the throw and…

“Yeah. Their heads are swimming right now with the new offense and the tempo of it, and what’s expected of them. There’s a lot on the quarterback’s plate in this offense. Me and Coach Beck, we’re actually talking, it’s probably the only position in football where you have to teach scheme before you teach fundamentals because you literally can’t get through a practice if your quarterback doesn’t know to open left or open right, to look at this guy or look versus that guy in his read, and all that. You teach the scheme first. There’s some fundamental things. Both of them are a bit of over-striders, so we’ve got to compact them a little bit. That’ll come once their comfortable in the offense. Then we can start talking about the minutia of fixing some of the issues with their mechanics.”

As a new head coach, you get your hands on them for two days and then theyre gone. How do you handle that and them maybe forgetting some stuff.

“I think because when we come back, we’ll have that Monday to meet to be able to refresh them, as well as with the first practice that their back on that Tuesday being in pads, you try as offense and defensive staffs not to install very much new stuff. It’s more going over what you installed day one and day two now in pads, full speed in pads. Then that Thursday, you can hit them with a few new things in instillation.”

Do you like this set up?

“I do. We thought about, because we’re a new staff and giving us time as a staff to kind of get our bearings of waiting until after spring break. Then, you’ve got to try to cram 15 practices into four weeks rather than 13 because we’ve got to hit the road spring recruiting. You don’t want to drag it out. I’ve done the four practices a week model and that’s tough on the kids.”

What were your thoughts when you studied the film from Tuesday’s practice?

“My thoughts were that we need to continue to develop our practice habits and go through the echo of the whistle. That was the main takeaway. But it was impressive when guys were going full speed and through the whistle. There was certainly a lot of athleticism out there on the field.”

What do you like about Lil’Jordan Humphrey?

“He had a really good winter. Out here, he’s big, so he gets winded pretty fast. We’ve got to get him in football shape. He’s a big guy that you can tell loves football, wants to get better.”

John Bonney was practicing at safety. Is that due to Jason Hall or that’s where you’d like him to be playing?

“That’s where we’d like him to be playing just because of what we do with that boundary safety and the communication that’s involved. He’s a really bright guy. We’re hoping we don’t need him at the corner depth right now, and he can play back there. He’s a physical guy that can support the run. We’re going to try to develop some of those young corners knowing that John is capable of playing corner, nickel should we need him.”

What did you see from Davante Davis?

“He didn’t stand out, good or bad. I really didn’t notice him. It’s hard when you’ve got 80, 90 guys and you only have a few workouts to try and form an opinion on every single one. I’ve heard a lot of good things about him. He looks the part. We’ve got to see if he can play football.”

What were you hoping to get out of these first two practices?

“Just practice culture. What the expectations are for a practice and that the plays don’t matter. They never will. It’s how you prepare and how you practice, and ultimately, how you play, and the effort and intensity that you play with. If you’ve got elite championship practice habits, you can call whatever play you want, if you’ve got good players and you’ve recruited well. I think that’s really starting to sink in.”

What have you seen from Toneil Carter?

“He looks like a high school senior right now. Certainly, not used to the workload at this level. He’s eager to learn. He’s not defiant, which is good. He’s just got to grow up in a hurry in terms of practice habits. His head is swimming if it’s not, you know, he went left, should have gone right. Ok, next time he went right, but he didn’t have good ball security. Next time he went right, had good ball security, but his footwork was bad. There’s always constant coaching with the guy with his lack of experience.”

What did you see from D’Andre Christmas?

“A guy that needs to give better effort. When he does go, he’s an athletic guy, but he needs to learn how to go all the time.”

Why are both QBs are wearing braces on their left knee?

“It was something I started at Ohio State, because Coach Meyer, that was one of his deals. I just think it give them some security back there knowing that they can step into throws and all that and not worry about things that are at their feet. And then on gamedays it’s their decision on if they want to wear them on gameday or not.”

Anything you can glean from having to move into the bubble due to lightning?

“Yeah! It was one of the things that I was happy with at the end of practice, was how they came in and went right to work and didn’t bat an eye, didn’t take kicking them in the butt. I think they were excited to be in there a little bit and get out of there and not have to worry about lightning or anything like that. Yeah, that was positive.”

How many players are in the crimson group?

“I don’t know. I know there’s 31 in gold. I’m not sure of the other two levels.”

Does it change every day?

“No, but they’re eligible to be nominated to move up a level at any time, but you’ve got to display some consistency. We never put any time limits on it, but it’s not an everyday thing, certainly.”

 

[Rotty22]

why isn't the top group burnt orange?  

burnt orange > gold

 

[Bear19]

Thanks for putting that here Will.

 

[MBHORNSFAN]