Spring practice
- Thread starter Hawkfnntn
- Start date
I went to the practice and I'll throw out a few tidbits that got my attention.
I thought the two QB's that played the majority of snaps looked pretty darned good. I talking about Jackson Stratton and Hank Brown. Stratton looked pretty impressive on the first drive of the 11 on 11 portion of the practice (which covered the last 45-60 minutes of the day). Stratton threw a pretty pass down the left sideline that KJ Parker caught and took down to about the 4 yard line. More on KJ Parker in a few minutes. Stratton did have an interception off of a deflected pass that was a bad decision. Brown looked good overall too. My biggest takeaway from the day is that our offense actually had a downfield passing game. That should have everyone excited although we all have a wait-and-see approach, understandably.
The receivers had a good day overall. Notably, KJ Parker I thought really showed out well. And Reece Vander Zee really looked the part too. Dayton Howard had a couple of good catches and Kaden Weitjen looked good running and in the passing game.
A running back that caught my eye was a true freshman, Nathan McNeil. Really looked quick and explosive. We didn't run the ball a ton but he stood out to me. Molton and Patterson did not see a lot of snaps. TJ Washington looked good too.
On defense, I didn't notice a lot to be honest. A lot of starters out for health/precautionary reasons. One thing that did catch my eye were the three redshirt freshman who played with the 1s for most of the day on the D-Line: Chima Chineke, Joseph Anderson and Devan Kennedy. They were all in because of others being held out but I they looked pretty good to my untrained eye. I think our D-Line will be on an upward trajectory in 2026 and beyond. Maybe some of those guys contribute this year. Llewellyn was pretty unstoppable although our O-Line was playing a lot of 2s on the first team that day too.
So take it all with a grain of salt. I don't put a ton of stock in what goes on in the spring practice but the biggest thing to me was the improvement in the passing game. I hope that carries over to the season.
I'll try to answer if anyone has any specific questions as I'm leaving out (and forgetting) a lot too.
I thought the two QB's that played the majority of snaps looked pretty darned good. I talking about Jackson Stratton and Hank Brown. Stratton looked pretty impressive on the first drive of the 11 on 11 portion of the practice (which covered the last 45-60 minutes of the day). Stratton threw a pretty pass down the left sideline that KJ Parker caught and took down to about the 4 yard line. More on KJ Parker in a few minutes. Stratton did have an interception off of a deflected pass that was a bad decision. Brown looked good overall too. My biggest takeaway from the day is that our offense actually had a downfield passing game. That should have everyone excited although we all have a wait-and-see approach, understandably.
The receivers had a good day overall. Notably, KJ Parker I thought really showed out well. And Reece Vander Zee really looked the part too. Dayton Howard had a couple of good catches and Kaden Weitjen looked good running and in the passing game.
A running back that caught my eye was a true freshman, Nathan McNeil. Really looked quick and explosive. We didn't run the ball a ton but he stood out to me. Molton and Patterson did not see a lot of snaps. TJ Washington looked good too.
On defense, I didn't notice a lot to be honest. A lot of starters out for health/precautionary reasons. One thing that did catch my eye were the three redshirt freshman who played with the 1s for most of the day on the D-Line: Chima Chineke, Joseph Anderson and Devan Kennedy. They were all in because of others being held out but I they looked pretty good to my untrained eye. I think our D-Line will be on an upward trajectory in 2026 and beyond. Maybe some of those guys contribute this year. Llewellyn was pretty unstoppable although our O-Line was playing a lot of 2s on the first team that day too.
So take it all with a grain of salt. I don't put a ton of stock in what goes on in the spring practice but the biggest thing to me was the improvement in the passing game. I hope that carries over to the season.
I'll try to answer if anyone has any specific questions as I'm leaving out (and forgetting) a lot too.
NorthKCHawk
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the observations. I am most interested in the scheme and philosophy of the offense. Spring Games are always vanilla, but I like to hear that the QBs were pushing the ball down the field. Even with attrition and injury, this is a deep QB room.
thedukeofearl
Well-Known Member
trj
Well-Known Member
Left tackle and corner are the two biggest question marks going into the season…any thoughts/observations on that front?
HuckFinn
Well-Known Member
This post was very well done. Thank you!
Left tackle had Trevor Lauck with the 1s. I didn't pay particular attention to the line play really. But he had a false start or two, which is fairly typical. I mentioned that Llewellyn was in the backfield a lot, he could have been the primary blocker on some of those plays but I can't say for sure. Line play in general was a little hard to judge because of all of the missing pieces on both sides of the ball.
As for corner, I thought TJ Hall looked the part. I didn't really notice Deshaun Lee a lot and maybe that was a good thing. I really thought our success in the passing game was due to good offense beating the defense, not so much a failure of the defense. One play in particular sticks out in my mind. Reece Vander Zee was about 15-20 yards downfield with a defender all over him. I think it was Hank Brown at QB who threw the ball before he made his break. He turned around and the ball was in his hands at that instant. That is something we've seen other good teams do but rarely have we been able to complete a pass like that. And an example of good offense being better than good defense on that play.
