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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Still Waiting...

Greetings from the Butts-Mehre building over at UGA. Practice is set to begin in about a half an hour -- at 4:45 p.m. -- and the players are going 20 periods. That's going to make for a long day, and I probably won't have a post with practice notes until around 8 or 8:30.

In the meantime, if you have some burning questions you want to ask as we get set for our first round of post-practice interviews with the team, fire away in the comments section and I'll be happy to answer them for you.

UPDATE: Just got in from the practice fields. Watching periods 1-4 of practice is always pretty useless, but who can argue with being out on the field on a day like today? Anyway, not a ton to report. I shot a bit of video, but didn't get much before my batteries died for the 743rd straight time I've tried to use this camera. Matthew Stafford, Dannell Ellerbe and former Bulldog (and Macon native) George Foster were in attendance for the practice session. John Eason may have moved to an administrative role, but he was right back on the sidelines to watch his receivers get their first day of practice in. Oh, and Dallas Lee got a quick introduction to what it's like to play for Stacy Searels. Let's just say he got an earful pretty early on. And coincidentally, his Buford High coach was on hand to watch.

And more news... they've got tow trucks lined up to take players' and reporters' cars away yet again. My suggestion -- since they got him so many times last year -- was for Stafford to use his money from his first pro contract to build the "Matthew Stafford Players-Only Parking Garage" next to Butts-Mehre. He'd be a legend among future Bulldogs.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

David,

As far as a new mentality goes, I think that's great that Richt is treating this year like his first year on the job. What I'd like to see is how that carries over to practices. I'd love to know if Richt speeds up the practices a little bit to kick things off and set the tempo and practice expectations for the rest of the year. After all, what better time to do it than the first practice of the spring?

David Hale said...

Richt said last week his plan is to set a number of reps he wants to get out of each player at each drill rather than setting any time limit on the drills. That'll help with all the injuries so guys aren't being overworked, but it has the extra incentive of having coaches pay much closer attention to individual reps for each guy. I think he plans on working the guys who are out there pretty hard.

Anonymous said...

Hey Dave, just wanted to throw out a few I was interested in knowing.

1. Do you know all the periods and what they do in each since I've never been to a spring practice, and it would just being interesting for me to know.

2. Are any regular spring practices open to the public or just G-Day.

3. I was curious if you could find out by watching the practices or ask Mark Richt specifically how he's preparing Logan Gray to be the backup and potentially the future Starter in 2010. Is he getting 1st team reps or is he just by watching him; performing like someone who could come in the game and take over the offense, i want like to know more about what this kid can do.

Thanks Dave you run an amazing blog, you give a ton of content that you can't get anywhere else for free. Keep up the good work and hope you can get some more batteries to shoot video.

David Hale said...

Lee -- not sure about the specific periods, and they aren't super big on giving out details for obvious reasons, but they tend to start with special teams, then basic running drills, then some positional hitting, then finish with some full-squad "scrimmage" work. We're never allowed out there though past period 5 of 6.

I think G-Day is the only full day open to fans, unless you know somebody on the inside. And no, I'm not "somebody" sadly.

As for Logan, I'll have more on him later this week, but Richt and Cox both said he had his best practice ever today. Oh, and he's off special teams for the foreseeable future, Richt said.