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| Spring practice. Not on Tuesday, but a spring practice photo |
Have to say, it's been much more physical at Troy's spring practices this spring. Full pads all the time (when allowed by the NCAA). The Oklahoma drills are very spirited and fun to watch. And yes, some skirmishes break out. I like it and I think it's going to be good for Troy this fall.
I won't call them fights, because they're not. But one player will take exception to a hit or a hold or a grab and come up firing. Usually, both players are restrained and it turns into a big pile. But maybe a skirmish breaks out on the side of the pile. That's football and it happens everywhere.
"Everybody’s legs are tired and they’ve got an ache and a pain here," linebacker Brannon Bryan said. "We’re just going at it and having fun."
It got more heated later in. Quarterbacks are way off limits. Jacoby Thomas came in late and gave Corey Robinson a nice hard push, and all hell almost broke loose. Some more pushing and shoving happened after that, and coach Larry Blakeney had to step in and get it stopped before field goal drills.
"It is normally a little bit like that," Blakeney said about the last week of spring practice. "We’ve got some guys that are competing and it gets a little heated every now and then. We try not to let that turn into something off the field. Sometimes it fuels good stuff on the field but it doesn’t fuel nothing good off the field. I think we all walked it off here the right way.
"I don’t like fighting. Sometimes things happen out here to induce a little scuffle. We don’t condone it."
Blakeney said Thomas "knew better" than to do that. Later on, linebacker Tyler Roberts stripped Robinson as he was about to make a throw and took the ball. In a real game, it would have been a heck of a play and probably a touchdown. In an 11-on-11 practice situation, not so much. This one didn't start anything (and I'm telling you, Roberts is going to be a good one before he leaves Troy).
"(Thomas) knows better than that," Blakeney said. "The one that (Roberts) made was scarier. That’s a no-no. If he had got up on his arm the wrong way instead of the ball, it could have been bad."
***Troy has a practice Thursday afternoon and a practice Saturday morning at 10 a.m. It was supposed to be a scrimmage, but Blakeney said it would be just a normal practice to finish things off. There will be some 11-on-11 work at the end, but no referees or anything like that.
***Starting linebacker Dimitri Miles returned to practice after missing two weeks with an injury. Miles didn't play in any of the scrimmages. Obviously, neither did another starting linebacker Kanorris Davis, who hasn't practice after his bad ankle injury at the end of last season.
***Defensive coordinator Jeremy Rowell said starting safety Barry Valcin looks "back in the mode before he got hurt a couple of years ago" referring to his dislocated ankle/fractured fibula suffered 2 days before the 2010 season started.
***Watch out for redshirt freshman running back Daron White. Now, with four seniors returning, I don't know that he has a big role this year, but he should get some carries. He looked like he got hurt on a play, leg or knee or ankle or whatever. Next thing, I look up and he's taking a screen pass, weaving through the defense and getting a big gain.
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