Georgia football hosted day two of spring practice on Thursday. Fundamentals continued to be the focus of practice. The intensity was high as usual and coaches made sure to let players know. Michael Pope and I broke practice up as he took the defense and I the offense. Here are the main takeaways from Thursday’s practice. 

Savannah’s Offense Report:

Hankton Continues Intensity with Wideouts:

Cortez Hankton is loud and intense when it comes to coaching. He reminds me a lot of James Coley in that sense. Hankton had the wideouts work on speed during the first media period. He told the guys, “Got to be fast, got to be cleaner. Run this s*%$ fast, you got to get this going.” Terry Godwin being Terry Godwin answered him, “It takes a little long to get loose. You know how that is.”

Jayson Stanley looks like he put on about 10-15 pounds of muscle. He looks more physical in his routes, and just thick. Matt Landers is still pretty skinny and could use about 15 more pounds on him. Jeremiah Holloman looks like he’s put in some work. His arms were muscular and he looked thicker. Another note on Landers is his ability to make catching the ball look easy. He’s so smooth when he runs. Landers is quite the specimen with his long arms that seem to be as long as his legs and those big hands. He didn’t drop a pass thrown to him today and made every catch look easy.

I did get to see how the wideouts rotations today. 1) Godwin and Riley Ridley, 2) Holloman and Tyler Simmons, 3) Stanley and Michael Chiggu and 4) Landers and Trey Blount.

As for slot rotation, it went Mecole Hardman, Ahkil Crumpton and then Kearis Jackson.

 

 

Offensive line Keeps it the Same:

Sam Pittman didn’t switch a whole lot up on Thursday. They ran through fundamental drills and then broke into double team stuff.The first team looked like this, Andrew Thomas (LT), Kendall Baker (LG), Lamont Gaillard (C), Ben Cleveland (RG) and Isaiah Wilson (RT).

Cade Mays and Warren Ericson took reps with the second team. Mays worked at right tackle and Ericson at center. The rest of the lineup looked like this, D’Marcus Hayes (LT), Netori Johnson (LG) and Solomon Kindley (RG).

Quarterbacks Continue to Heat it up:

After only two days of practice, this competition between Justin Fields and Jake Fromm is one for the ages. Fields is so strong and has so much accuracy. It’s ridiculous to think he just got to campus in January, and he’s already this good. Fromm made some good throws too. Both quarterbacks threw with a little heat on them.

RBU…For real:

Georgia officially deserved the title when this team went to the Rose Bowl and didn’t quit. Now, with Nick Chubb and Sony Michel gone, the Bulldogs look to see who steps up first. Zamir White continues to impress me on a daily basis. He took handouts in a polish drill and then went off to the side to do some stuff with Ron Courson. White’s way ahead of schedule and the media got a taste of his speed on Thursday.

Michael’s Defense Report:

 

Since we’re early in the spring season, a lot of the focus in practice will be on fundamentals and having proper technique and that was the case today.

Starting with the defensive line, Scott was focused a lot on making sure his guys had proper footing and their hand placement. Scott constantly yelled for his guys to have “Good efficient footwork.”

David Marshall’s hand look heavily wrapped, but he did not have any trouble with it

New outside linebackers coach Dan Lanning was constantly challenging his guys and throwing different looks at them. Lanning was especially focused on D’Andre Walker’s footwork, who should see the field a lot this season.

Lanning shouted at Walker “Come on D-Walk, Your feet are dead! You got to keep your feet alive!” Lanning also gave some encouragement to Robert Beal and told him to “Put his eyes in the gap.” This coaching all came during a drill that focused on block shedding.

 

 

It was interesting that the drill started without Walter Grant and Keyon Brown. They came from the offensive side of the field and joined in later.

The inside linebacker rotation went in this order – Juwan Taylor, Natrez Patrick, Tae Crowder, Monty Rice, Jaden Hunter, and Nate McBride. Hunter and McBride swapped out the order on a couple reps.

A caught a little bit of the safeties working, but the guy who stood out was Richard LeCounte III, who made a nice one-handed catch.