Cal Football 2015 Spring Practice: April 3rd Report

This may easily be the most mellow and uneventful practice this spring. The team is going back to back on Friday and Saturday, so the team kept it fairly light with only shells and gym shorts. Here's what happened!

• The day started off with a lot of stretching and just jogging/wind sprints. Seemed like the coaches just wanted to make sure the entire team was full warmup and stretched out.
• Luke Rubenzer is still the only one in a red shirt and if you missed it, Sonny Dykes stated he would be for the rest of the spring.
• There was also a fairly big chunk of time devoted to Special Teams and Ball Security. Linebackers and Running Backs worked together on ball security while the other worked on trying to strip the ball. O-line and D-line worked on forcing fumbles and recovering fumbles. The Wide Receivers and Defensive Backs just worked on covering Hail Mary and Lob catches in the end zone.
• Kyle Wells and Maurice Harris had insane one-handed grabs in this drill. Kyle Wells is a very intriguing player, standing at 6'4"/230 lbs. He seems like he could become a very good redzone threat and receiver to follow in the steps of Stephen Anderson and Darius Powe. Maurice Harris has been having a great spring, making great catch after great catch. He also has been solid in beating his defender in one-on-ones.
• The practice then shifted to splitting up offense and defense. Offense ran simple routes with all the QBs throwing. Defense worked on simple fundamentals such as foot speed and hand placement. Nothing really to note here, except one sublime catch by Trevor Davis. He made a leaping catch on a hook route, but the ball was way over his left shoulder. Still adjusted in time to make the catch in mid-air.
• The offense then proceeded to work on their uptempo offense and screen pass game.
• Jared Goff threw like his usual self, composed and always moving his feet. Chase Forrest was the other QB who worked the uptempo. He was throwing with some more zip and accuracy than his usual throws. This spring seems to be a great improving spring for him.
• Defense was split between DBs, LBs, D-Line. DBs worked on reading routes and turning hips. D-Line worked on rushing by side-stepping around pylons. LBs worked on shedding blockers and how to stuff gaps.
• Practice moved onto Run Game (D-Line/LBs/O-Line/RBs) and Pass Game (DBs/WRs/QBs).
• Ray Hudson made a great TD over the middle.
• A.J Greenhouse sticks with his man and made a great PBU play by getting his hands in-between the ball and receiver. Could've had an INT if he ripped it down.
• Stephen Anderson loses a ball of his fingertips, after being his man on a seam route.
• Jared Goff to Bryce Treggs down the sideline on a streak. This pairing is our deadliest combo.
• Luke Rubenzer seems to be getting more and more comfortable in his role at Safety. His closing speed isn't there yet but he makes the right read on a route and makes sure he is not beat.
• Erik Brown looks bigger and faster. Can easily beat defenders with his speed and size, but his first step is his biggest weapon. He beat Grace on a fade route, which I thought he mis-ran. But Vic corrected me.

California Love!