Monday notes

Published 8:17 pm Monday, April 14, 2008

I had to miss the 25 minutes of today’s practice that was open to the media, but word from a school official is that J.R. Hasty and E.J. Savannah, both of whom have been kept out of practice all spring for not living up to some sort of responsibilities, were participating in practice (or at least the part open to the media).

Tyrone Willingham didn’t meet with reporters today, so we didn’t hear anything from him about that, but hopefully we’ll learn more tomorrow.

I had a few interesting conversations with players today. Johnie Kirton, who moved from tight end to defensive tackle this season, said the position switch is going well so far, but admitted that he has felt lost a few times out there.

Ryan Perkins, last year’s starting place kicker, said that his right knee, which is his kicking leg, hurts more now than it did last season. Perkins suffered a severe knee injury in the spring game two years ago, and had to have two reconstructive knee surgeries.

He admitted that he considered not kicking this year because of the pain and the possible long-term damage he could be doing.

UPDATE: I said earlier in this blog that Perkins hinted at not returning for his senior season, but I just heard from him and he wanted to clarify that that wasn’t the case and wasn’t what he meant to imply when talking to the media today. Perkins said that as of now, he has no intention of leaving the team early. Look for more on Perkins in Wednesday’s paper.

Offensive coordinator Tim Lappano met with reporters today as well. Here’s a few of the highlights:

Lappano said that some of the young players on offense struggled a bit in last weekend’s scrimmage in part because of a bit of information overload that can be common this time of year when coaches are installing more offense.

“I think there was a lot of thinking going on that slowed them down a little bit, and that’s all of them,” he said. “There’s nothing going in today, we’re going to go review today, because they’re flooded.”

Thoughts on the play of the tailbacks:

“I thought Brandon [Johnson] did some nice things, he ran the ball physical inside, but I was disappointed with some of the losses. They have to understand that it’s OK to get two yards, but it’s not OK to try to get a big run every time, because what happens is we get three or four two- or three- yard losses that shouldn’t have been… that was a little disappointing, but that’s youth.”

Asked what the positives were about Saturday’s scrimmage, Lappano pointed to the play of quarterbacks Jake Locker and Ronnie Fouch, as well as that of receiver D’Andre Goodwin, who appears to be emerging as the Huskies’ go-to receiver this spring.