as for the rest of the team, its been a really good week for the quarterbacks to start preseason practice. From people that we have spoken to, the duo of quinten dormady and jarrett guarantano have yet to put it into the defenses hands during team sessions. Both seem to have benefited from the 7-on- 7 work, as the two have been crisp and consistent to this point. The receivers have been up to the challenge early as well, with latrell williams, josh palmer and josh smith having a very impressive opening week of camp. One source told us, "latrell just makes plays and he's been doing it all week." overall, the passing game is still a work in progress, but it's off to a faster start than in years past and many in the program credit that to the summer work which includes some 7-on-7 sessions.
Also having a really good start to fall camp have been some newcomers. During early team work, ty chandler has shown incredible vision and some special cutting ability. Also in the backfield, tim jordan continues to be very much in the mix for playing time. It's clear that sophomore carlin fils-aime is going to have to pick it up if he's going to be any kind of factor in the backfield this fall. It's not just been all newcomers at tailback, though. Junior john kelly did rip off the longest run during team-work on wednesday, as he just continues to run angry. Jordan has been a surprise because he was so unheralded coming in, but he's got the size you want to be an sec tailback and his toughness has been praised by many early on.
Defensively, kahlil mckenzie has been more than explosive. In fact, "explosive" was the word that multiple people used to describe his start to camp. Coming off the edge, darrell taylor has been tough to block early on as he looks to take the next step. In the secondary, cheyenne labruzza had a really good day on wednesday and made several big hits as a cornerback.
Still, no one is ready to anoint any freshman anything at this point. More of the playbook is being installed and often times, that's when heads start swimming. We will see how they handle things mentally, but this class seems to belong. They have shown good athletic ability and good football i.q. Early on.
It will be interesting to see how the punt return battle shakes itself out. We haven't seen anyone catch a punt with people breathing down their neck, but freshman theo jackson looks as good if not better than anyone just naturally fielding a punt. He has drawn praise on the practice field from the head coach. Jones is always involved in special teams, but he's making it a mission of his this year to improve on what was a disappointing year in his eyes last season in the kicking game.
