Practice Report for April 10
ATHENS-- If you were planning on robbing Butts-Mehre or anywhere near today, you picked a horrible time. Alongside the team, coaches and media, there was anywhere between 50-75 police officers from the Winterville police department.
Maybe all the players were intimidated by the heavy police presence, or maybe there was just something in the air. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but today's practice was way more intense than I've seen in awhile.
We'll start with an update on Ben Cleveland. I put on the board a few days ago that he had suffered some sort of ankle injury during Saturday's scrimmage. It obviously wasn't too bad as he was out there today working his normal first-team right guard spot. I'll double check later tonight, but my guess is that he's doing just fine and will be business as usual from here on out.
Staying on the offensive line, I know some of y'all were talking about your concerns on D'Marcus Hayes on the board. Things looked even worse for him today. Jim Chaney was relentless when yelling at Hayes when the offense and defense were working zone-read schemes and Wild Dawg formations. After one set, Chaney yelled, "Get me a new tackle. I don't want to deal with this guy." Chaney was taking no BS. Although he did get a new haircut from the last time I saw him, so he's probably happy about that. But I digress.
Speaking of the Wild Dawg, it looks like Mecole Hardman will be the main guy there for this season. It will be interesting to see what else they do there. Georgia was able to use a good mix of Nick, Sony and Mecole there last season to help balance power and speed in different situations. I would imagine that Kirby and Chaney would still want some sort of bruising Wild Dawg lineup, something he won't get from Mecole.
For the first time in quite awhile, I didn't watch James Coley at all. It was kind of a sad looking back on it, but Dan Lanning was able to fill the void in my heart. Now he isn't Coley, but I really think Lanning is going to get something special going with the outside backers. This dude looked like he was sweating more than the players were today. Lanning, like Chaney today, was feeling relentless. Also like Chaney, Lanning targeted one player: D'Andre Walker.
Right as the media walked out, you could hear Lanning screaming, "Damn it D-Walk, don't put that on film." I laughed and went towards the offense. When I came back several minutes later, not much had changed. Except now, Lanning had backup. While working some agility drills ending with the tackling of a dummy, Kirby was present to get in Walker's face as well.
"Can I get a sack fumble D-Walk? You got all these sacks and no fumbles!" As many of y'all can imagine, Kirby was phrasing it more as a hostile demand rather than an actual question.
Final notes on player positioning on the depth chart, a few times today Brenton Cox was working as the No. 2 a few times. Also, Mark Webb (Only 2/3 of a true Webber), was working as the third cornerback when I watched the corners do pressing drills.