On the offensive line, Terrence Campbell, Kevin Young, Gurminder Thind, James Thompson, Seaver Brown and Pierre Andrews each competed for the guard spots. One source thought Young and Thind looked the best of the group. Pierre Andrews could end up being in the mix, too, which is surprising to me personally.
There’s no doubt coach Spurrier is fed up with this OL situation and expected it to have been ironed out weeks ago. Certain players still want to take plays off, and he’s not going to tolerate it any longer.
They spent a lot of time yesterday working on the running game. Finding a consistent running game is going to be key down the stretch of this season.
They also spent a lot of time working with the young receivers, and there are signs the light is coming on with some of them. It’s the little things that they struggle with most…running routes, finding the soft spots in the zone, etc…, but they are getting better there.
Defensively, Carlos Thomas returned to practice, and I hear the secondary had a good night overall. Tyrone Nix’s defense is built to attack, and they need a high level of play from the secondary to run it properly. That’s an area that hurt them against UNC with Thomas and Stoney Woodson out for that game.
USC’s special teams units continue to make progress and one of the reasons why is that it’s been a consistent focus in practice. They set the tone in the UNC game by almost blocking a punt early, and their punter never seemed to recover. Captain Munnerlyn is going to return a punt for a TD soon. You can feel it.
Stephen Garcia ran the offense twice last night in the team-work and threw two touchdown passes; both to young receivers.
This post was edited on 10/17 5:11 PM by Tony Morrell
There’s no doubt coach Spurrier is fed up with this OL situation and expected it to have been ironed out weeks ago. Certain players still want to take plays off, and he’s not going to tolerate it any longer.
They spent a lot of time yesterday working on the running game. Finding a consistent running game is going to be key down the stretch of this season.
They also spent a lot of time working with the young receivers, and there are signs the light is coming on with some of them. It’s the little things that they struggle with most…running routes, finding the soft spots in the zone, etc…, but they are getting better there.
Defensively, Carlos Thomas returned to practice, and I hear the secondary had a good night overall. Tyrone Nix’s defense is built to attack, and they need a high level of play from the secondary to run it properly. That’s an area that hurt them against UNC with Thomas and Stoney Woodson out for that game.
USC’s special teams units continue to make progress and one of the reasons why is that it’s been a consistent focus in practice. They set the tone in the UNC game by almost blocking a punt early, and their punter never seemed to recover. Captain Munnerlyn is going to return a punt for a TD soon. You can feel it.
Stephen Garcia ran the offense twice last night in the team-work and threw two touchdown passes; both to young receivers.
This post was edited on 10/17 5:11 PM by Tony Morrell
