8/21/10 Practice

By: NelsonO

Paipai Falemanu sat out practice this morning and Aaron Brown continues to be out, so linebacker Art Laurel took reps with the first team.

Though he was just throwing against the scout team, Bryant Moniz looked very good today as he connected on a bunch of long passes including bombs to Allen Sampson, Kealoha Pilares, and Royce Pollard.

QB Kevin Spain had his arm (and shoulder) in a sling at today’s practice.

The kick-off team got in some work. Back deep to return the kicks were Greg Salas, Royce Pollard, and Allen Sampson.

I noticed for the first time that freshman TJ Taimatuia took some reps at defensive end.

Curiously, Corey Nielsen and the scout team ran a lot of option against the first team defense.

One of the things I like about Coach Aranda is that his defenses are not vanilla. He runs a lot of different alignments, moves players from one side to another on subsequent plays, mixes up coverages, and disguises his blitzes.

In some packages, look for Corey Paredes to play middle linebacker.

Brett Leonard split time between left guard and center. He also wore a different number (#54) today.

The team, or at least most of the team, practiced the Haka after practice. The defensive linemen ran hills after practice.

At the end of practice, the team went into the hurry-up, two-minute drill. To simulate crowd noise during the two-minute drill, they played some very loud music. The coaches must have selected the music which included songs by Al Green. They should have played the primal screams by Jim Donovan after he heard Fresno and Nevada were leaving the WAC.