Practice 20 brought some of the heat back out which we appreciated because it challenged us to really focus in and push ourselves. Our legs appeared a little heavy after the kicking scrimmage yesterday. I don't think our players realized just how much running they did in the kicking scrimmage. They were having too good of a time covering downfield on punts and kickoffs and did not realize the conditioning they were getting in.

Today is really the first time we have separated in offense and defense and began to take time to prepare for the Miami Redhawks. Throughout camp we have been working on a lot of looks, both offensively and defensively, to determine our strengths and exactly where our identity would be on both sides of the ball. We have a pretty good feel where we are now and it is time to start getting our key players reps against the Miami looks on the field. This will gives us plenty of film to evaluate and teach from as we continue in our preparation for September 3rd.

Our annual kicking scrimmage was a success. The thing I was most impressed with was some of the guys who are starters on offense and defense were out there being as competitive as could be. When we do that scrimmage, we change jerseys because it is a mixture of guys of offense and defense. It was interesting to see some of the jersey numbers selected by some of the guys: Teddy Ginn was sporting number 97; David Patterson was wearing # 4. The one official commented that had to be the widest # 4 he had ever seen.

The kids played extremely hard and had a lot of fun. The kickers, punters, and long snappers got put into pressure situations they are going to face during the season. I was very happy with AJ Trapasso; Josh Houston was solid; Ryan Pretorius did an excellent job kicking. The long snappers were all very solid. The thing I was most impressed with the most was the effort, especially at the end of camp when everyone is a little bit tired. But they know the importance of special teams and that we can not be a championship football team without being great in the special teams. The team addressed it accordingly and we had a lot of fun.

Check out coach's audio on the kicking scrimmage in the Interview Section of the Video Vault.

Today being a one practice day, we saw the players with a more enthusiasm and playing with more energy. It is now becoming important to focus on the things we can and can't do and continue to limit our packages to what we will be utilizing against Miami. Our emphasis today was still on specific game situations we still need improvement in: that being 1st & 10, 3rd & long, coming out-where it is imperative you are able to move the chains and get one first down to establish field position, and finally in the red zone within the last two minutes of the game. We say it over and over, but we need to continue to look for the opportunities to create take-aways and not shoot ourselves in the foot on critical third downs by having penalties which gives the other team a first down or takes one away from us. The one person, who at the end of the day when we ask ourselves who stood out, is Malcolm Jenkins. He continues to improve daily and is continuously making plays or he is in proper position to make plays.

Tomorrow morning we will lighten up in the first practice and spend some more time working on individual fundamentals and then rev it up in the all important kicking scrimmage tomorrow where we will be looking for our specialists to perform and we will get one good look at who is going to help us on the all important special teams.

This morning we went out in shells and had an emphasis on fine tuning our special teams units. We knew thee would be some soreness remaining form the scrimmage on Saturday and we wanted to work the legs a little bit to get everyone ready for the full padded practice in the afternoon. We came back out in full pads in the afternoon and limited our team go somewhat. It appears those who were starting to get "camp legs" are starting to recover and we are getting our quickness and speed back.

We are starting to look real hard at scripted game situations which we feel we need to work on - the 2nd & longs and 3rd & mediums are important downs that you need precise execution on both sides of the ball. We are continuing to work on our red zone plans and place an emphasis on converting and putting points on the board every time we get.

The big hit of practice came on the last place of a goal line situation where James Laurinaitis (FR - Wayzata HS, Hamel IN) put a big hit on Troy Smith (JR - Glenville HS, Cleveland, OH) on an option play, even though Troy was wearing a black jersey.. Neither guy was going to back down and that will probably carry over and set the stage for tomorrow's practice.