Tuesdays are our day to meet with offensive players (though for the second straight day, few players showed up) and offensive coordinator Tim Lappano.
Before I get to Lappano’s comments, a few notes from practice:
Five players earned gold jerseys for their play against Oregon: Jake Locker, Marcel Reece, Anthony Russo, Louis Rankin and Ryan Perkins. No players on defense wore gold at practice (shocking I know).
Three players wore red jerseys. Luke Kravitz and E.J. Savannah were both to be expected after suffering stingers, but cornerback Byron Davenport was also in red. Not sure why, but he seemed to be moving around fine and was doing drills with the first-team defense, so it doesn’t seem like his injury is too serious. I’ll ask Tyrone Willingham and or Kent Baer about it tomorrow.
As for the offense, here are a few highlights from our meeting with Lappano:
Asked about the rotation at tailback, he said that Brandon Johnson is now the team’s No. 2 back behind Rankin. That’s bad news for J.R. Hasty, who had been in competition with Johnson for the job and seems to have been passed by the freshman.
Lappano was asked if he’d like to use some of the no-huddle offense that worked so well for Oregon.
“Yeah, we’re not ready for that yet, but we’ve talked about that. I’ve done that before, but I don’t want to do that with [Locker] just yet. I think next year he’ll be ready for that.”
Asked if he thought last weekend’s game was Lcoker’s best performance, Lappano said it was (though Locker said yesterday that it wasn’t since the team lost).
“I think he really grew in that game from a management point. I thought his decision making was really pretty good. He did some things when he got flushed out—he got some pressure on him—he got flushed out a couple of times and got rid of the football, where had he not done that, here we go with another eight-yard loss, losing yards which we can’t afford to do.
“The other thing that we’ve always talked to him about every week is, if it doesn’t fit, don’t force it, and that’s one thing that he hasn’t got that he got last week. Almost to a point where I thought there was a shot down field I wish I would have taken. He’s listening and he’s growing with that. I didn’t think that he forced the football in that game like I’d seen the last couple of games. He heard that, and he didn’t do that last week. He didn’t try to fit it in there. I thought he really grew and I though he really played a good football game.”
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