Spring practice weekend round-up: The April 22 edition
Well folks, we hope you enjoyed yesterday. With just about every major program in college football wrapping up their spring practice either last week or in the past 24 hours, it’s going to be a good long time until football kicks off again. Simply put, September 1 can’t get here soon enough.
But until then, there’s plenty to talk about, starting with what we learned this weekend. A number of major programs took the field, and here is everything you need to know about Saturday’s spring games:
- At Ohio State Urban Meyer unveiled his new offense to a crowd of over 82,000, the most of any spring game this season. Crystal Ball Run’s Allen Kenney gives you the lowdown on everything you missed.
- Staying in the Big Ten, it was much the same at Penn State, where Nittany Lions fans got their first look at Bill O’Brien and the offense he brought with him to Happy Valley. Unfortunately, O’Brien left Tom Brady behind in New England, and the offensive output in his first spring on the job looked very, ahem, "Paterno-esque."
- Across the way at Notre Dame, Brian Kelly has a quandary unlike any coach in college football: He’s got four quarterbacks all vying for the starting position. That’s right, four. To which we ask, if the old saying goes “if you’ve got two quarterbacks than you don’t have any all” what does it mean when you have four? Oh, that’s right, you’ve got a clusterf***.
Either way, Tommy Reis got the bulk of the snaps yesterday, with Everett Golson looking sharp completing 8 of 15 passes.
However, the best nugget may have come from the picture above, when former NBA and Navy basketball star David Robinson accompanied his son Corey, a Notre Dame football commit into the Irish's locker room. Yeah, it definitely got a little awkward for "The Admiral." (by the way, you think when David posed for that picture, Corey said, "Daaaaad, stop it! You're embarrassing me!!")
- At Arkansas, Tyler Wilson simply continued to do Tyler Wilson things, completing 31 of 41 passes for 467 yards and three touchdowns. Who knew that Bobby Petrino, Joe Adams and Jarius Wright were all just pawns last year in Wilson’s diabolical plan to take over college football?
- Staying in the SEC, the ground-game was key at Tennessee, where Marlin Lane finished with 106 yards rushing (shh, don’t tell anyone that he was playing against the second-team defense). In addition, Tyler Bray looked sharp (14 of 26 passing), connecting with one beautiful 51-yard deep ball to Da’Rick Rogers (of course Rogers biggest accomplishment of the day was playing four whole quarters without doing something to piss Derek Dooley off, which is a major accomplishment in and of itself).
The scary thing for Tennessee’s opponents this fall? Justin Hunter didn’t play Saturday, and junior college superstar Cordarrelle Patterson (also a wide receiver) doesn’t arrive until the fall. The Vols could end up with the SEC’s best passing game in 2012.
- Meanwhile it was an interesting day in the ACC, where Virginia Tech had their spring game rained out and Maryland held a spring game of their own, with the main headline in College Park being, “Wait, Maryland has enough guys left on their roster to play a spring game?”
At NC State the big story wasn’t the Black team beating the White 32-7, but that $26,000 got raised for the Kate Yow Cancer Fund. No joke to make here, that’s just spectacular news.
- Wrapping up, Geno Smith looked sharp at West Virginia; a previously unknown quarterback lit things up for UConn; and Syracuse didn’t have an offensive touchdown all afternoon, making Orange fans the unquestioned losers on a day when we weren't expecting to crown any.
And finally, in Mississippi, Bo Wallace impressed in Hugh Freeze’s first spring as Ole Miss’s coach, and at Mississippi State, the story wasn’t actually even the football. Instead, it was a Sugarland concert that played after the football concluded Saturday. Below is a picture of the stage.
For all his opinion, insight and more, be sure to follow Aaron on Twitter @Aaron_Torres.
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