Defensive Players Look Good In Second Week Of Practice
Quarterbacks Trey Fetner and Ross Metheny participating in position drills in a previous seasons practice session.
Monday’s practice wasn’t the best day day for the Jags, especially for the quarterbacks who didn’t have a good day throwing the ball.
But everything has a silver lining sometimes as the defense showed alot of passion on the defensive line and linebacker. Theo Rich knocked down a number of passes. While Jesse Kelley has started to be a leader both on and off the field for the defensive line. He and Jerome McClain have been working to teach the younger guys the system and pushing them to continue to get better each practice and each play.
Kelley finished the 2013 season tied for 11th place of the Jaguar tackler’s last season with 34 stops and 6.5 of them for loss including two sacks.
On Wednesday, the quarterbacks looked better throwing the ball with more accuracy. Also Brandon Bridge, who came into spring practices as the top quarterback, has started to take on more of a leadership role.
Coach Jones was impressed with the defense again as the secondary and linebackers did a good job. They did a good job in coverage with Montell Garner picking off a pass during the practice session.
A bit of a surprise was sprung on the players and kickers at the end of practice. Jones told the players in his post-practice talk with the team, that the kickers, Aleem Sunanon representing the defense and Zac Henry representing the offense, were going to attempt 45-yard field goals. If one made it and the other didn’t, then that squad would have to do pushups. If both make their kicks, the coaches would do pushups.
Both kickers missed their kicks on the first attempt, but both made them on their second attempt and the coaching staff did their push-ups.
USA will return to the practice field on Saturday with a two-hour-plus scrimmage scheduled at 3pm. “We’ll have a long scrimmage,” Jones told AL.com after practice. “It will be every bit of two hours because we want to get as many people on the field as we can and get them some reps. One of the things we talked about in the staff meeting is just getting better fundamentally. For instance, the only way the offensive line can get better is by going with the speed of the game and blocking guys at a full-speed rate. Walking though and all those things – talking about it and watching film – ain’t going to get it. So we get our offensive line better and our defensive line better playing fast out here at practice and they’re doing a good job with the practice tempo.”
The first part of the day on Saturday will be Junior Day where somewhere between 200 and 300 prospective student-athletes will visit allowing the school to showcase what they have to offer. They will have an opportunity to see the campus as well as watching the scrimmage. Coach Jones says that if they can get a kid on campus, then they stand a good chance at getting them to eventually sign with the program.