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Friday, March 14, 2008
Some early impressions of Spring Ball
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spring practice is almost in full swing. We’re just 48 hours from Selection Sunday in basketball. What better time than for another “Free-Wheeling” Friday. I’ll be at the SEC Tournament all day blogging. If you have time, jump over there for some hoops.
Here are a few impressions of spring practice to date:
1. Brinkley won’t do much this spring: I talked to some South Carolina people at the Georgia Dome yesterday and they tell me that linebacker Jasper Brinkley (from Thomson) is up to about 270 and that it is all muscle. Brinkley’s injury last season began the downhill slide of the South Carolina defense. With Ellis Johnson coming in at DC, don’t expect Jasper to do a whole this spring. Everybody knows what he can do. In a related matter, cornerback Carlos Thomas, who has 20 starts over the past three seasons, is really in coach Steve Spurrier’s doghouse. He has been suspended and may have a tough time getting back in the good graces of the HBC.
2. McElwain preaches toughness: Jim McElwain, the new Alabama offensive coordinator, is trying to bring a new sense of toughness to that unit. Some people may wonder about the wisdom of that. I don’t. Writer Rick Bragg, who now teaches at Alabama, said that every game in the SEC “is like a knife fight in a ditch.” If you want to win in the fourth quarter in this league, it’s usually about physical and mental toughness and not talent. Talent puts you in position to win in the SEC. But physical and mental toughness under pressure actually wins the game. When David Cutcliffe came back to Tennessee two years ago, he told me his biggest challenge was not X’s and O’s, but instilling a high level of discipline and toughness into his unit. That is what McElwain is trying to do.
3. Auburn’s two-headed quarterback: I am intrigued with what Auburn may do at the quarterback position under new OC Tony Franklin. It’s clear that the spread, run by sophomore Kodi Burns, is going to be the base offense. And Burns, I should mention, can throw it a little better than most folks think. But I believe Franklin hopes that Chris Todd, the JUCO transfer who started at Texas Tech, could really put a wrinkle into things that will make it hard for defenses to prepare. Under the base offense, the defense gets spread horizontally. Then Todd could come in and get the ball down the field and spread the defense vertically. That’s a lot of work in one week for an opposing defensive coordinator.
4. Mallett will sit in 2008: Former Michigan quarterback Ryan Mallett is asking the NCAA to waive its transfer rule in order to be eligible this season at Arkansas. I reached out to some Arkansas folks and they said they don’t know when the ruling will come down. Mallett will not get a waiver. The NCAA does sometimes waive the rule that requires a player to sit out a year after transferring to a Division I-A school. Tennessee basketball player Tyler Smith got a waiver because his father had cancer. Mallett wants a waiver because his new coach, Rich Rodriguez, runs a different offensive system than the one Mallett enjoys. Not quite the same thing.
5. Get Berry the ball: I read where Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer is finally going to consider getting cornerback Eric Berry involved in the offense. The Vols have to do this and here’s why. Berry is Tennessee’s version of Champ Bailey, the Georgia cornerback who is among the most gifted athletes to ever play for the Bulldogs. Georgia found different ways to get the ball into Bailey’s hands on offense and he won a couple of games for Jim Donnan on his athletic ability alone. Defenses were terrified every time Bailey came onto the field for offense and had to spend a lot of time planning for the handful of plays in which he would be involved. A lot of times Bailey would just be a decoy that would allow Georgia to run something else. Berry is just too talented to be on one side of the ball. Is there a risk of injury? Of course. But if Berry wants to do it, that would be a risk worth taking.
