Saturday, August 18, 2007

Practice Wrap - 8/18

Some quick-hit thoughts from today …

-A 27-yard field goal attempt by Ryan Harrison bounced off the right upright, and his 62-yard attempt missed badly. “On the 62-yarder, it looked like the snap was a little bit high, and I think he tried to hit a little more on it,” Air Force coach Troy Calhoun said. “He’s just got to hit a normal ball. He has enough of a leg where he doesn’t have to reach back and go with a 1-iron instead of a 3-iron.”

-The ball was on the ground again a few times.

-Outside linebackers Julian Madrid, Hunter Altman and John Rabold all did a good job getting to the quarterback.

Lasting image: Saturday’s play of the day. Near the end of practice, Air Force worked on late-game goal line situations (offense needs to score a touchdown to win and has the ball inside the 10-yard line).

With the second-team offense facing fourth-and-goal from the 7-yard line against the second-team defense, quarterback Shea Smith rolled right and lofted a pass into the corner of the end zone. Sean Quintana, who had run a fade route, was covered well by freshman cornerback Reggie Rembert. But as both leaped for the ball, Quintana reached over Rembert (from behind the cornerback), tapped it back to himself, caught the ball and landed with both feet in bounds.

“Big-time play,” Calhoun said. “Seems like every time we come out and scrimmage and it’s live and guys are hanging on you, it doesn’t seem to bother him.”

“During the season he’s going to be a player for us,” quarterback Shaun Carney said. “He’s just a guy that’s dependable.”

Coach’s quote: “I liked the contact. I thought we were physical on both sides of the ball. And yet we’ve got to play faster and more aggressive and we’ve got to be cleaner as far as our ball-handling.” – Troy Calhoun on the Falcons’ Saturday practice.

Stripe or no stripe update: Current vote: 4-1 in favor of helmets without stripes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Earlier reports on Harrison have been pretty good. How have his kickoffs been? Moving them back to the 30 is supposed to create a lot more returns. I would be nice if Harrison's leg took them away. Winning the kicking game will be more important than ever.

Also, Calhoun has said AFA will continue to run triple option. Will we ever see it run out of the old flexbone formation?

jake.schaller said...

I haven't seen a whole bunch of Harrison's kickoffs (sometimes he holds back so the kickoff team can work on coverage), but he definitely has the leg to get the ball into the end zone (and sometimes out the back of it). This is where he will be a huge factor. I think he can take away a lot of the opponents' opportunities to run back kicks, even with the ball placed on the 30.
As for the old flexbone, you might see it here and there but not nearly as much as you used to. They'll run the option out of multiple sets (including shotgun).