Spring Practice Day 1 Recap

Thanks to my 5:30 class on Tuesday's I had to leave the first spring practice slightly early. I will give you a few general observations from the first half of practice and give some links to the hoosier scoops and iuhoosiers.com analysis that covers the other half.

Offense:

-During a variety of throwing drills Ben Chappell looked very crisp and accurate on his throws. His throwing motion seems to be pretty concise. Adam Follett came in with the 2nd unit for now but that might change during the spring. Dual threat QB Ed Wright-Baker looked very athletic during drills and showed off his mobility.
-As expected Tandon Doss was the best receiver out there but what really impressed me was him showing off some leadership skills as well. He was the guy who stepped up and was more of a vocal leader to the receiving group. It looked like Dre Muhammad was the first one called upon after Doss and Belcher for the offensive sets with 3 receivers. Right after him came in Duwyce Wilson, Tyler Adetona, and Jamonne Chester. The receivers dropped a couple of passes in a row early on and then were nearly flawless for the rest of the drills that I was there.
-Darius Willis looked his usual self and Nick Turner showed some great bursts of speed during drills.
-Chris Hagerup had some big punts while showing off a very strong leg.

Defense:

- Converted linebacker Darius Johnson looked very quick coming off of the line on a variety of defensive line drills. I didn't get to watch much of the defense but the defensive line in general seemed pretty quick during drills.
-As expected, Tyler Replogle was in my opinion the best performing linebacker during drills. He showed off his quickness during many bag drills and looked to be a leader as well for the defense.
-Jerimy Finch and Donnell Jones showed some good hands working on the ball machine. Occasionally Finch would drop one from what looked like a lack of concentration.

Overall I was pretty pleased with what I saw. It is pretty hard to judge the first practice since they were only in shorts. Here is a link to the hoosier scoops take on the first practice. The hoosiers didn't seem very rusty which was a good sign. In fact the ball machine was probably the most rusty thing on the field as it kept flinging faulty balls into the air.

Here is another link with more play by play highlights from practice. Their is also a video with interviews of Darius Willis and Tyler Replogle after practice.