North Carolina State University Athletics
Annabelle Vaughan's Preseason Diary, Practice 5
8/11/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Aug. 11, 2004
RALEIGH, N.C. - The coaches decided to stay in shells today (shorts and shoulder pads) and start full pads tomorrow for two-a-days. They're planning on doing a run-oriented workout first thing in the morning, so that will definitely be a full-pads session. There was still some pretty good contact today though. Obviously, there isn't as much to write about when they're not going full contact and are only practicing once every day. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the players), the schedule works out that we only have four days of two-a-days this season. It's a far cry from the old days, when there was day after day after day or two-a-days. Sounds like there is some rough weather in the forecast for the next couple of days, so the schedule might get tweaked a little bit. The first six periods of today's two-hour workout were all special teams - punt and kickoff. After that, there were several periods of individual drills and then pass skeleton, 11-on-11, and for the first time this season, one period of goalline. Exams are over, so everybody was out there, ready to go. Yesterday, Miguel Scott blocked a punt during speciality, banging up his shoulder a little bit in the process. He'll be back in a couple of days. Some nice plays today during one-on-one. The wideouts and Dbs were doing "deeps" and Jamesley Jean had a nice catch and Lamart Barrett made a great grab on a dive. On the defensive side, Troy Graham made an athletic interception. I've noticed that Troy is really stepping up as a leader on defense. When the intensity dies down a little bit, you can hear him out there telling his teammates to step it up. OK - this may be getting redundant, but board drills were once again the Mario Williams show. Sorry that I didn't stop to watch the running backs against the linebackers or the defensive backs against the wide receivers. It's just too much fun to watch #9 come across that board. I'll try to scope out some of the other positions next time. T.A. McLendon and Darrell Blackman both had some nice runs during inside drill - it doesn't take much of a block for T.A. to make a long run and it looks like Darrell has a nice little spin-move too. During pass skeleton, Marcus Stone threaded the needle and John Dunlap made a beautiful catch, then Jay Davis did the same to Brian Clark and a couple of plays later hooked up with Clark again on a bomb. Tight end Roddy Long also had a nice catch from Davis. You can tell they are itching to put on full pads - there was a lot more talk from the sidelines during skelly. When Guerlin Dervil made a big hit, everybody in white went absolutely nuts. When Chris Hawkins made a tough catch a couple of plays later, it was the guys in red turn to whoop and holler. It's great to see Renaldo Moses making a tackle, Sterling Hicks making a block and Chris Colmer blocking for our ball carriers. Moses or "Bird" as he is known to his teammates, looked pretty strong on the boards today.
