(upbeat music) - Welcome to the show. It's like Christmas Day has arrived. First day of Notre Dame, fall training camp. It is here. I'm Sean Stiers along the Christmas. (laughing) - Well, it's Christmas. - That's right. - That's right. A little human out there, I guess, for Christmas. But it's good to have football back. Good to get out there and see some football this afternoon, Brian. - Yep, absolutely, it was good. I mean, it's like this summer went by so fast. And there's negative things about that as a business owner and someone who's trying to get his house still in order after, you know, seven months of renovations, but it's great from someone who just misses football and is excited to get some football back, man. It was fun to be out there. I mean, obviously we would love to have more. We would love to have more access, but, you know, some little something's better than nothing. And it was good to be out there and watch this team and really get that first day. Okay, what's the first impression of this team and what do they look like? And I'm excited to talk about that all, Sean. And it was me and you were there. And of course, you know, this year, last year, you took a vacation at the start of fall camp. This year, Vince took a vacation to start a fall camp. So I mean, I guess I might to be a take a vacation next year to start a fall camp. It would be my turn next year, right? So that's right. But yeah, I'm excited to be out there, Sean, and start to kind of see, okay, we think we know what this team is going to look like now. We're going to find out, you know, where we were right, you know, and where we were wrong. See, I learned my lesson after last year. You know, of course, last year was week zero. So we weren't really exactly sure when it was going to start, you know, because I found out late and then, but I learned my lesson, you know, don't based on last year. And we felt like there was a chance that they would start early again this year. So fortunately, I didn't get caught Vince. Vince gets caught dangling. - Vince is less, less excusable 'cause it's a week one game. And he literally has gone a month before fall camp starts. And we always know you got to be around, and you know, a month before- - That 30-day window, you know, it started at that point. - Yeah, but hey, I mean, we got people excited. I got super chats, AST12321 to heck with the off-season football is back. Hope I can figure out how to successfully run RPA, RPO plays in CFP 25 before A&M kicks off. And in tangack also with a Super Chat, appreciate you very, very, very much. You know people are excited when you start getting super chats before the show even starts. - Seriously, seriously, everyone's fired up. I mean, that's a good sign. - Yes. - Well, absolutely. - Let's kind of jump into it. We've got a lot to cover today because as you said, it was the only full practice that we're going to get. - I've got my fingers crossed that, you know, 'cause I was saying the other day, last year, I think didn't we get kind of two years ago? Was it two years ago that we got the bonus that we weren't expecting? - We were supposed to be there for like half a prac, like the first five periods and they were like, hey, coach decided that they're going to keep you, which we were very appreciative of, you know, and hopefully we can be very appreciative of that again this year. So we'll see, we'll see. - Well, so what did you think? Now, you know, we got to get out there. We saw everybody in action, some of the new coaches in action, what was kind of your overall feel for what you saw out there today? - You know, obviously we'll dive into the specifics of each, but there's always some fun, okay, what are some big picture takeaways? And one is, this is a relatively healthy team, Sean. I mean, you had three guys doing basically on the bike, they're not practicing. And I think Coach Freeman talked about all those, right? It's Jabron Payne, Kahano Kia, who's out for the year with an injury. And then Quentin Autry, who's the transfer from Columbia who's a walk on defensive lineman was out as well. Then obviously Mitchell Levens went through individual drills, but didn't do anything competitive-wise. Everybody else was out there and out there practicing. And so this is a pretty, a very healthy situation for this football team so far, knock on wood. That was obviously one observation. The other one too, Sean, is this is a very like, one thing Marcus Freeman has been trying to do since he arrived at their name as the decordinator, is we need to get longer. And you see that with his team. It's like, you just watched like the, we were, I was talking, it was Tom, Noy and I, we're joking about this. And then you and I were joking about this later. Two years ago, Steve Angeli was significantly the tallest quarterback in the quarterback room. It was like him, Tyler Buckner. It was Drew Pine and Dylan Devison, right? Tyler Buckner at six, one and a half was the second tallest quarterback. Now you look at it and see, and Steve Angeli is the fourth tallest quarterback. The only quarterback he's taller than is Kenny Minchi. 'Cause CJ Carr's taller than him. And not listed height, just looking at him, you can tell CJ Carr's taller than Steve Angeli. And obviously Riley Leonard kind of towers overall of him. And just the, it looks so much different now. You look at the receivers. And last year it was like Tobias and Dion and then everybody else is kind of, you know, they're just, they're just overall just a lot longer there. Defensive line, incredible length on the D line. You look at the linebackers and, you know, just Drake Bowen's in there now. Kingston's in there now. There's just so much, they're just bigger and longer. And it's noticeable, you know what I mean? You just kind of see that across the board. This is just a really tall, I mean, Jayden Micky's 5'11", not too long ago. He's one of your taller corners. And now he looks like a little shrimp out there, you know. (laughing) You look at Benjamin Morris and standing next to Christian. Micky's an inch shorter than Christian Gray. And then Leonard Moore walks in and you're like, (laughing) you know, like it's a very long athletic football team. Are they physical and all that? We don't know from a first day of practice with no pads on. But you always kind of gauge, okay, how do they move, what do they look like? They're strong looking, right? They're filled out. There's not, I mean, you saw at the O line, there's not a lot of flab out there, Sean. For sure. Especially with the veterans. Like these guys look good and you hope that they look good and they move really well. But I just was really impressed with the length and just the overall team speed. It's like having this conversation on the message board, you know, we put some intel out there on the message board and another reason to be a member, boards@arshbreakdown.com 'cause tons of intel on there. But when you look at it, it's, it's, you know, somebody said, well, you know, you look, the starting lineup and he was, is this team really faster? And I'm like, you had Chris Tyrion to buy us could run. This year, you're like five, six, seven deep of just guys that can fly. Now, can they play? Well, find out. But man, they can run. You're just watching Chris Mitchell and, and Jaden Harrison and KK Smith. And you're just watching these guys running. Like, this is a, it's a really athletic team. And that was one of my biggest takeaways from the practice is just how long and athletic this football team is. And Sean, did you feel like there was a lot more talking going on, not like trash talking, but just, it was never quiet. And I feel like in the past, there's always been like periods where there's just like, it's just kind of quiet. There's not a lot of communication going on. It's okay. It, even like at the end of one period, there was a freshman DB makes a mistake. And they start kind of going over, and a Don Shuler just makes a B line over to him. And he's kind of getting in his face and correcting him about, you know, what they do. And, and you look at it and you're like, man, this is, this is a very talkative football team. And again, we're not talking trash talking, we're just talking constant communication between coaches and players and players and those type of things. And that's something else I noticed today during the practice. Football season may be over, but the action on the floor is heating up. Whether it's tournament season or the fight for playoff home court, there's no shortage of high stakes basketball moments this time of year. Get in on the excitement with prize picks. America's number one fantasy sports app, where you can turn your hoops knowledge into some serious cash. Prize picks is the largest daily fantasy sports platform in North America. We are the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. It's just you against the numbers. Instead of battling thousands of other players, including pros and sharks, you pick more than or less than on two to six player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in. You can now win up to a hundred times your money on prize picks with as little as four correct picks. You heard it, four correct picks. You can turn $10 into $1,000 with NBA, NHL and college basketball entries today on prize picks. America's number one fantasy sports app. It is so easy to use. All you have to do is download the app in the app store or Google Play Store, sign up, add some funds and you're in. Then you just find your favorite player and decide more or less on the suggested stat. It really is that easy. The night I joined I picked Hannah Hidalgo to have more than 14 points, Maddie Westbell to have less than 10 rebounds and Marcus Burton to have more than 18 points. And guess what, I hit on all three. Bing, bang, boom, baby, money in my pocket. It was just that easy. Download the app today and use code IRISH for a first deposit match up to a hundred dollars. Again, download the app today and use code IRISH for a first deposit match up to a hundred dollars. Prize picks, pick more, pick less, it's that easy. No, that's true, there was just a lot of that going on, you know, on day one and I think that you kind of hope that you're gonna see that kind of stuff on day ones that you're coming out of summer workouts and everyone's together and the whole thing. And, you know, I know that one thing is for certain and you and I talked about this while we were there, you definitely heard a more vocal offensive coordinator than what we've been used to hearing over the last few years. I mean, it was good talk. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't like Harry Eastan, you know, with some of the, you know, like Harry's kind of stuff that you would hear from the offensive line group, but I think like to hear him over everybody kind of says something, you know, like you would hear him run on and off the field, get that helmet on, run on, run, you know, all those kind of things, just reminding people, you know, this is not camp, you know, like summer camp, we're out here to work, you know, and you kept hearing reminders from the new offensive coordinator. There was a definite different tone set from that area. - Very commanding, very commanding. I mean, even things like yelling at Riley Leonard about getting the slide in the protection going in the right direction. There was a play where he got pressured and then Brock gets on Riley Leonard about, he didn't check the slide protection the right way. This is one of those times where number one, this is why fans sometimes need to be like, oh, the offensive line could protect quarterback. Well, it's not always the offensive line's fault. You know what I mean? When the quarterback doesn't check the slide protection in the right direction, guess what? You're going to have trouble handling, you know, double edge pressure when you don't slide to the double edge. If you slide away from the double edge pressure, you're going to give up a sack, it's just going to happen. You know, things like that. And it wasn't done like you said in a nasty manner or it just is like, look, it's an expectation. It's exactly going to work, we're going to go. - Exactly. - You know, I expect you to make more plays, you know, demanding that guys show more effort, guys fight for the ball. You know, and even as they're kind of going through drills, it's just, there's barking from him. There's barking from Mike Brown. Attack the ball, attack the ball. You know, as they're the balls on the way, almost like beating it into their heads. Like attack the ball, attack the ball. There was one time during a one-on-one and I can't remember who it was, might have been Eli reared it. But the quarterback's cocking back to throw and Eli was running the stop. I think it was Eli. I'm just going to say it was Eli and I think it was him, but I'm not, I'm just a shirt. Might have been somebody else. But he's standing there as the DB is closing on him and you hear Dembrok Yell, you know, attack the ball and immediately the guy responds and steps to the football and makes the catch like, in the middle of a drill. So you can just tell there's certain things that this team is going to emphasize day one and they're going to say them a lot. And, you know, that was, it was good to see. It was good to see that. And as a football coach, you always look for those kinds of things. And I know Jared Parker did a, you know, a solid job usher and they're even set an all-time scoring record, right? Yeah, there's just a, there's just a difference of command. You can just see it. There's a difference of command. When you talk about Mike Dembrok, I mean, I haven't seen a coach this vocal since, consistently vocal since Chip Long was here. Yeah, I mean, it's the difference between a guy who's been around the block a few times. He's been an offensive coordinator and run the show for several years now. And he's been here before it Notre Dame obviously as well. He's got the familiarity with Marcus Freeman from their time at Cincinnati. I think all of those things together just kind of give him sort of probably a different kind of, you know, like, I know what I'm supposed to be doing. I've got my side of expectations. Let's carry him out. And let's just be honest about something else. If you know Mike Dembrok at all, just doesn't care. Like, it's like, dude, I'm going to be me, right? And if you don't like it, then that's a you problem, not a me problem, right? And again, I don't mean that in a, like, he's just going to tell you off to your face. And it's like, dude, I'm here to coach you up and I'm here to win. And if you don't like that, you know, then I think somebody in the chat said, you know, I let here and Dembrok correcting Riley Leonard. I feel like Sam Hartman didn't get held accountable for some of his playing mistakes last year. And I think that's fair. I mean, I know that's a criticism I heard from some, you know, people around the program, players and players, parents is, is they love Sam personally, but there was a frustration that, you know, he wouldn't get corrected for mistakes in the same way that everybody else got corrected for mistakes. - Sure. - And that's not going to be a problem with Mike Denbrok. I mean, I promise you, if Jayden Trans, Jayden Daniels would have transferred to Notre Dame this off season, and he set a protection the wrong way, he was going to hear about it for Mike Denbrok. Like that's, he was that way with Will Fuller when he coached the wide receivers. I mean, he'd get on Will Fuller in practice. I'm sure you remember that, Sean, if Will wasn't running the route right or didn't catch the ball, he'd get on Will Fuller. He didn't care. It's like, I'm holding on, everybody's being held accountable to the standard that we're setting. And if you don't live up to it, and you're going to hear about it, and you're going to get corrected, and you're going to get taught. And that's something that I saw and was very happy, very happy to see. - You know, and I think that just watching, obviously the deference was part of this as well, but just watching the format of practice, the biggest noticeable difference from the, basically anytime I can remember to this year is they were doing seven on sevens for a good duration of practice. And they had Riley Leonard and Stephen Gelly with the, you know, the first and second string offenses on the near field, the field closest to us where they typically run stuff. And then they put Kenny Menchie and CJ Carr with the third and fourth string offenses on the, you know, on the far field over close to the building, running simultaneously. So everyone's getting a ton of reps out there. You don't have third and fourth string guys standing around, maybe getting four or five reps at the end, you know. - That's, I think, the two spot that you and I were talking about beforehand, I believe that's where I was wondering if that's what it was called. - Yeah, 'cause you asked me that. And I was like, there's two, there's two things that you can say like, you know, are they working on like, you know, two spot? Is that a coverage? - Right. - You know, is it working on a, you know, two techniques? 'Cause another name would run a lot of two techniques and on their defensive line, I didn't know if that's, so I said, well, what's the context of what you're saying? And then you're reading like, oh, he's talking about the two practices, which I wrote about that in my practice report, Sean, my first practice report. I got two up right now, I got two more that I got to write when this shows over. But-- - But you're not done with those yet? Like, what are you even going on? - I'm like, Rich is gonna be like one offense, one defense. And then when I finally got down with the offense in the quarterbacks, it was like 1,200 words. And I was like, okay, we're just gonna make this one. And then I was like, okay, I'll make receivers, running backs, tight ends, an O line, a second one. And then when I got down with the receivers, like, okay, it's 1,200 words, I'm just gonna make this to say another one. - And then we're getting kind of close to the show. So no, I had a lot to say today. And look, we're only getting one of these practices. I wanna make sure people get their monies work tomorrow as much as you can. - Got to get as much in as you can. - That's right. - But I love that, Sean. Now, here's the downside. You're not getting as much like live coaching, right? But here's a different-- - Right, because Jen Brock is, you know, an Al Boulderner with the ones and the twos. Because of the expanded coaches that you have. So remember, there's a new rule in the NCAA now where analysts can be on the field. I don't remember seeing Trent West with the first team offense. Trent, I'm assuming that Trent West was on the other field. I didn't see the GAs over there. I'm assuming they were on the other field. What that means is those kids are getting coaching, but then because you're recording it, the position coaches, the full-time coaches, so to speak, can then go back and watch the film later. That's way better for kids than just standing around and hoping to get a couple 13 reps. So I actually liked it. We used to have to do that at some of the Division III schools I was at, Sean. Like, Mount Union used to have two separate practices back in the day when Larry Kerris was there. 'Cause they'd come into camp with over 200 kids. - Oh, I'm sure, yeah. - So they'd have like practice over here, then another practice over there. And it's, you're getting great reps. That's the big thing. And it was a little surprising some of the guys that were down on the second team down there and talk about that when we get certain positions, but I love the fact that they were getting a lot of reps. It wasn't great for us 'cause we couldn't really evaluate those guys down there 'cause it was on the far side of the field and there was this big tower right in between. So like, once a guy threw a ball, you're like, "Well, I don't know what happened." - And the man's lead. - Yeah, I had five enoculars. I was doing my best, but it just seemed like every time-- - All the time out, yeah. - The tunnel and it's, oh, that must have been a complete, or you see some guy running. - No, he must have completed that one 'cause that guy's running past the tower, but for the team, right, it's good 'cause they're getting a lot of extra work. So he was, and that was new. That was definitely new. And I say this was probably the most intense, I've seen Marcus Freeman in a day one practice. He was, and it wasn't like, he was coaching a lot. And he was coaching certain aspects of the team, but he was also very active. Like when guys weren't hustling, he was getting on him, you know, and I thought that was very interesting to see today. - Well, and we should mention that it was a, it was a pretty muggy day today in Zeppelin. Muggier than it has been in a while, really. Like today, and it started to get a little bit more yesterday. It's been fairly mild here this summer. So in terms of what we're used to-- - Last week is pick up a pick. - Yeah, it's started to pick up, and like you could see some of that, but-- - However strong. There's no excuse. - No, for Chris Mitchell to be struggling with the heat, I'm like, I'm joking. Dude, you came from Florida internationals. You were in Florida last fall camp. You should be fine with the muggy stuff. No, but in all seriousness. So it was a pretty heavy heat today, and there's no doubt. And that's a good thing for Notre Dame. I hope that they have a lot more of that, 'cause that's gonna help better prepare them for college station when they get down to-- - For sure, I mean, like you could see some of the, some of the linemen, you know, who are out there. Those are the guys you expect to like really see some of that. - Normal on day, you can tell. - Yeah, the other part of day one too, Sean, is you're a little bit over fired up on day one. And you ever do something in an athletic standpoint, Sean, and I'm sure all of us have done this, right? Where you're so ramped up, and you just get out there and you just go 100 miles an hour, and you're like, okay, I've kind of used up all my fuel a little bit too early, right? I mean, that's gonna happen in day one in practice, 'cause you're just so ramped up. By the time you get to practice four or five, you just kind of hit that rhythm of, okay, I'm just, hey, here we go on to practice. Let's do this. And day one, you'll tend to see quarterbacks a little bit more, you know, throwing, missing high a lot. You'll see, you know, receivers kind of getting gas a little bit early 'cause they're out there, you know, you're trying to win a starting job on the first rep, you know, and that tends to be a pretty normal thing. But we didn't see guys checking out. I remember it was, I'm trying to think it was 2019, I was 2016, I think it was 2016, it was one of the years we were at Culver. I just remember, there were so many signs of that team. It's 2016, or maybe it was 2017, I can't remember, I think it was 2019, no, it's 'cause Ronnie Stanley was on the team, so, it's either 14, 15, or 16. Okay, I just remember the first practice we had at Culver, they had a tent for guys that were doing heat exhaustion. And I remember there was like 15 guys at one point in time when did that tent. And you're just like, I don't know if this team is in really good shape, you know? And you could just tell, like, guys were gassed, and then you fast forward to now, and you're like, yeah, guys were, you know, guys were getting tired, but there was nobody checking out. - Right, right. - From what we could see, and that's a good sign. - There was no tapping out, there was under that kind of stuff. But, you know, like you said, Marcus Freeman, rest of the crew, just, we're a minor, you know, let's keep this moving, get a little pep in your step from time to time as that practice wore on. But I thought it was, you know, a pretty good practice. All things considered. Do you want to get into the quarterback? She got any more kind of general thoughts before we do that? - I'm ready to go, man. - So what did you think? You know, we got Riley Leonard out there. And, you know, as I brought up with Marcus Freeman in the press conference, he had a very active summer. He was doing a lot of things between the Manning Passing Academy and taking the crew down to his hometown in Alabama. And, you know, some of the other video that we saw, you know, within the last couple of weeks of him out there firing passes off and those kinds of things, you wouldn't know that he was injured by looking at him today, you know, just for starters, I think that that was obviously the, you know, the first very positive sign Riley Leonard. - Yeah, I mean, moving around in drills, quick feet, planting off that back foot, he looked fine. We didn't see him doing any running. I don't expect him to do a lot of running early in fall camp. You don't have to do it. There wasn't a lot of room for scrambles today, like even with the first team period, it was full skill, right? All receivers, all tight ends, running backs and full DBs, but there was only two D linemen against three offensive linemen. You're not gonna take, you don't want your quarterback taking off and scrambling during that period. It's like, you know, dude, there's two defensive linemen. We could scramble every play if we wanted to. You know, they didn't do any of the read stuff in the run game. It was just like, let's work on getting him back in the healthy. - Very basic, yeah. - The thing for me, Sean, is watching him go through drills and plant and move around when the defense was coming. There's a couple of times I thought Riley late in practice. We'll stone off his back foot a little bit. - Right. - Because the pressure just kept coming and that's just welcome to playing against Al Golden. I mean, it's kind of the deal. - I mean, he's gonna bring the pressures. - Yeah. - But that's something Riley Leonard didn't get to find a lot about in the spring. - Yeah, yeah. - Now, he faced an Al Golden defense last year, so he understands it. - That's true, that's true. - The thing about it though, Sean, there was never any times where he looked concerned about, like what can happen, a lot of times when you've had the kind of injury he had, you're not gonna be worried about it in drills 'cause you've done those drills a million times in the summer, you're good. It's when there's a crowd, right? When you're going through a team period and you're afraid to kind of really plan off that foot 'cause you just in your head, you're like, I don't want to step on, I don't want to be fall on it. I didn't see that from him today. - Right. - And that was a positive sign. And I thought, thrown the ball, he started it off a little bit, he was off. He was off, you know? But you could tell, Sean, he was rushing his mechanics. I mean, he was just really speeding through his thorn motion and he was just kind of driving everything down, you know, which is gonna happen. Like, Riley's problem when he rushes, and you saw this on film, Sean, when he rushes his mechanics, the ball drives out and down, that happened at Duke, where with Steve Angeli, when he rushes his mechanics, the ball goes high. We saw both of that today. - Yeah, exactly. - With Steve, the ball was always high, with Riley, the ball went down, because that's what their mechanics lead them to have issues with. I thought Riley settled in after that first, and Riley had more misses during the on air period than he had during one-on-ones and team. - Well, that's what I felt like he really started locking in, like once-- - Right. - And that was a little bit like Hartman too, for that matter. Like, when things mattered a little bit more, especially in practice, like you would see that lock in, and I think that we saw that from Riley Leonard. I'm curious, like, you're taking, you know, like because we are out there, it's day one, like you said, guys are a little bit more juiced up than usual, and you talked about these guys rushing their mechanics, but there are also people like us who are spread out all over the place with cameras and, you know, video recorders by the sideline. Do you think that that, like, those guys think about that at all? You know, like they're conscious of that, and they're sort of trying to, you know, to show something on day one? - I can't speak to that. I don't know what's in their head. I think that these kids are around that stuff enough that I don't think that they really think much of it. I mean, 'cause they always put out these practice videos of them working out. - True, true. - Those are the same cameras that are there. I think it's most likely, Sean, what I think since it's made, it's issues that come from speeding up your, like, there's two types of, like when you're talking about throwing it as a quarterback, right? There's times when you've got to speed up your throwing motion to get the ball out quickly. There's speeding it up, and then there's rushing. Like, I'm rushing through it. I'm not doing it fast. I'm just rushing through it. It's hard to explain the difference, but it is a difference. One is a, it's like a shortstop. You're a baseball guy, Sean. There's, okay, this ball was hit soft. I got to quickly grab it and throw it and get it in the first base 'cause that guy's speed. And then there's rushing it, where, you know, it's one thing to be smooth and quick, and it's another thing to kind of like, "Oh, shoot, I got to get there." There's a pressure involved. What normally happens in this situation is there's, it's a rush, I'm rushing my mechanics. And when you rush your mechanics, it messes up your release point. Some quarterbacks, and they're all gonna be different. Their particular weakness is going to be one thing or the other. You don't see a lot of quarterbacks that on one rep, they drive the ball to the ground, the next rep, they sail it over guy's head. Normally, a quarterback is going to have the same problem. Now, it may be one quarterback throws it down, the next quarterback throws it high, but a quarterback tends to have the same issue. And with Riley Lender, when he rushes, it drives his release point down. So like, when he rushes, he kind of gets here, and his release is here, and it drives the ball down. With Steve, 'cause Steve has more of an over-the-top throwing motion, when he rushes, the ball comes out higher and sooner, which causes the nose to stay up, and it sails high. - It sails, yeah. - Right, exactly. - That's always been Steve's problem going back to high school. So when Steve's on, he's got that nice over-the-top release, the ball comes down, you know, it's slight tilt down, and he's good to go. And we saw Steve was kind of off all practice. I thought Riley settled in as we kind of got into it. - For sure. - And I thought, you know, his decision-making was solid today. I thought there were times when Riley just wasn't okay. He should have probably thrown that ball out, but he just didn't quite get it out when you want to expect it on day one. But when he made decisions, I thought he was pretty accurate and got the ball out well. And probably the best play he made all day was during that first second team period when it was 11 on 11. And he knows the blitz is coming, and so he did kind of like a bit of a harder cadence, got Xavier Watts to jump off sides and props to Ashton Craig for seeing that and immediately snapping the ball, which that used to drive me nuts about the Notre Dame offense. Guys, clearly off sides, and they just take 'cause they want to run the play and they don't snap, like just snap the ball. - Yeah. - And Ashton Craig did that clearly and off sides penalty. So what does Riley do? He looks right and then throws a deep ball backside to Jane Thomas who outplayed Benjamin Morrison from football. So you saw some stuff like that. You're like, okay, this is a veteran. He's just, it's obvious that the timing is not there yet, but what I liked about Riley is he chose to hold the ball instead of forcing a lot of throws to him. Like the only throw he forced was during one on ones on that over route that Xavier Watts picked off. You never don't throw ball in one on ones. - Right. - Because you're-- - No, exactly. I mean, that's the purpose of the one on one. - Yeah. - DB makes the pick that he needs that work too. - Right. - So now I would have said, hey, throw it maybe over top, but those are different things that you saw. But now he, athletically he looked great. You know, I thought he settled in and was pretty accurate the rest of the way Sean. I had that really nice play where he beat the blitz and just hit Jeremiah Love out in space. I may not look like a big play, but dude, you get Jeremiah Smith or Jeremiah Love in space against a heavy all-out blitz. That's gonna, a lot of times, you're gonna go real well for the offense. - Yes. - We'll go well for the offense. - Yes, you're gonna beat, you're gonna beat a lot of defenses that way. And I saw Andrew asking how he moved. Again, he didn't, we didn't see him, they wanted them to stay in the pocket as much as possible, throw these balls, it was more, 'cause again, it was seven on seven stuff that wasn't a ton of 11 on 11. And even when it was 11 on 11, they're not in pads. So they essentially want these guys, you want the quarterback to see, you know, just like you were saying, he needs to throw the football, the receivers need to make plays on the balls, the corners and the safeties need to make plays on the ball. So there wasn't any, you're like in either seven on seven or 11 on 11, like any of that kind of running. We did see him kind of in some of the position drills, you know, do some of the zone read type stuff and you know, a little roll outs instead. There was, I'll just say there was no limp, you know, Riley Leonard moved well in everything that we saw him do. There just wasn't a whole lot of, you know, designed running. I'm sure this early in camp, they probably don't want him actually running. - Well, even if I'm a running quarterback, I don't want him running. Like, and it's going to be a big part of it. They want to practice, you're not worried about that. - Well, yeah. - You don't have pads on. So what are you going to learn about that? I mean, it's just, look, we're working on some practice. A lot of times is a, hey, we're working on something here. You know what I mean? And yes, we know you can take off running. We get that. What we need you to do is today, work on throwing under pressure. I know you can escape and run. I need to see that you can throw under pressure. And I thought he did a solid job of that today. But through the deep ball well a couple times, there was a poster out here through to Chris Mitchell that I actually thought was a well-thrown ball. I don't think Chris Mitchell thought he was going to, it was a backside post. So it was like, the read was over here and he came backside to the post. I don't think Chris Mitchell thought the ball was going to come. But I think that was a pretty good first day lesson of like, hey man, even if you think you're option four, keep running because the ball is going to come to you. And I thought that was good too. But solid first day overall, I thought for right. Yeah. And I kind of felt like that with most of the quarterbacks on the deep stuff between the quarterbacks and the wide receivers, it's still, again, I don't want to keep saying, well, it's day one. But it was especially for Riley Leonard, but for the other guys as well, like there's still some familiarity being built when you've got a guy like Chris Mitchell and Bo Collins and some of these guys. They're getting kind of, they're still kind of getting used to, okay, what's this quarterback going to do? What do I need to do as a receiver? Those kind of things, just being in sync. - I agree. I thought Steve was not sharp today. - Yeah. - I thought his accuracy wasn't very good. He had a lot of misses. There were periods where he was under 50%. - I thought he was the least sharper, the four quarterbacks. - Very much so. - Yeah. - And he still has the same issue of, he just locks in on that first read on too many times and how many times did he throw a ball today where soon as it got caught, the guy was getting lit up, or almost had to pick six today because it's what we saw in the jersey scrimmage 'cause he threw a pick six in the jersey scrimmage. It was on the same kind of play. He just locked in on the quick slide and just threw the ball and just, hey, it looks open to me and I'm going to throw it. The guy steps in Jaden Mickion, I think it's who it was. Steps in front of it picks it off today. It was like a Don Schuller who almost stepped in front of it and took it back. And so yeah, there's just still too much, there's just still too much of that going on and it's something he's going to have to correct in it, but it's just kind of been an issue for the last couple of years. But again, it's nothing to overreact to. Like I'm not a huge person who's on the Steve Angel, he's the future quarterback person, but it's still not a, I don't care whether you love Steve Angel or you don't think he can play it Notre Dame in anywhere in between. It's one day of practice, we've seen it. But look, he's competing against two young guys and he's going to have to clean that stuff up because I thought the guy that threw the ball better than anybody today was Kenny Minchi. - Yeah, absolutely. - I mean, and I thought CJ looked great. CJ was the best during drills. Well, I didn't get a chance to see a ton from CJ in the full practice. We saw more from Kenny. I thought Kenny do the ball great today. - I didn't do the ball well today. - I did too. Again, they were on the far field so we didn't get to see everything, but it just felt like every time we were looking over there. And again, I had the binoculars out and it's like the play starts on this side of the field. And then you've got that big tower in the middle of the field. And obviously then from what? Probably about the 40, the 30 or 40 on down the other side, but like when he was throwing some of the deeper balls, like he was throwing them very effortlessly. And for the most part with pretty good accuracy, there was one where I saw him, just split two defensive backs and he found Cam Williams with a nice gain that was probably 35, 40 yards, something like that. And there were a couple of like long fades toward the end zone, you know, on the far sideline that were maybe just a little bit overthrown or one or two that were right there as well that the receiver didn't quite make the right play on those kind of things. But I was pretty impressed overall with what we saw from Menchie. - The big thing for Kenny Menchie, Sean, and it's been the criticism that I've had of him and the sources I talked to him had of him is he's just not a real assertive guy. Kenny's a really nice, polite, laid-back kid. And that's fine off the field, but Tim Tebow's a pretty nice calm laid-back guy when you see him at Bible study or something like that. But you get him on the football field, he's a maniac. You know, Mantai was that way. Mantai, you know, quiet, calm, well-spoken. Then you get him on the football field and this guy's kind of crazy, you know? Kenny would take that calm laid-back onto the football field in some ways that can be good. But he just, he never played with any sort of sense of urgency last year or even in the spring. Today, Kenny came out with some swagger. He came out with, there was some, there was some purpose to what Kenny was doing even in drills. He wasn't just, like sometimes in routes on air, Kenny drops back and just kind of just get it out. And he throws such a beautiful ball, but he's just kind of, you know, just going through the motions. Today, it was like, he was, boom, he was sharp. He was getting that ball up, snapping off throws. I mean, he looked good. I thought he was as good as, he was a sharp, if not better, than any of the quarterbacks today. So I liked, that was important to see because like, look, look, Kenny's not, because, look, I know you guys love CJ Carr and I know you guys love Steve Angeli's veteran and all, but hey, look, don't forget about me 'cause I can ball too. And at least for this day, right, for this day, that's certainly what we saw from Kenny Menchie. So I was for sure very, very pleased to see that. Like of the, of the receivers, I think Dion Colsey and Cam Williams were probably the two most prominent guys over on that part of the field. Autumn was down there too. Who else? Logan Saldate. The freshman. Oh, it's not Date, right, right, right. That's right. 19 to this 19. That's what you keep thinking. When I saw him or, you know, two things happen today that we talked about. One, typically like for years and years and years, the offense wears blue, the defense wears white at practice and they came out today on day one and they switched it up. So the offense was wearing white, the defense was wearing blue. And so like when you're looking at the numbers on the sheet, that threw you off a little bit. And then like you were saying, like early in practice, I kept looking at 19 and thinking great house and not Saldate. Yeah. Kind of threw me off early on. Yep. Yeah, as a man, Jane Greathouse lost some weight. You know, that's right. Well, you know, then the other thing that you and I were, we're talking about is Emil Wagner and Charles Jagasau, we're both wearing 59 today. And now if you looked at the two 59s closely, it became obvious who was who because there's, you know, there's what Jagasau probably has a good 30 or so pounds on Emil Wagner. So there was a different kind of thickness, you know, in the lower half. But, you know, again, like, like early on when you see, you keep seeing that 59, it's like, how can he be two places? I said this to Shana said, that's how good of a soft season the Emil Wagner had. He's starting, he's starting a right tackle in left tackle. That's right. And at first you were kind of like, I think I saw Emil at left tackle as well. And I was like, no, no, that was Charles, you know, 'cause you were kind of looking around like your chart numbers and all that. And it was pretty funny. But, you know, that, that, yeah, the, the number thing is, Jade and Gray, that's now where number one, which makes him look bigger than he is. I had to get used to Jordan Faison where number 60 is number 80 as a freshman. Yeah, six, six, yes, six. Number 80's Xavier Southall, who's Courtney Southall's son, former Notre Dame player. And you're like, yeah, that's not Jordan Faison. You know, like as a little taller, a little sleeker than Jordan was. But, you know, Shana, just kind of wrapping up the quarterbacks though. You know, we liked what we saw from CJ in the little we saw, but today was an interesting day because you're gonna have the, this is the only time we're gonna see these guys in team periods all spring. I'm very curious to hear what some of the intel is when we kind of move through this process to see, okay, this is what a guy did here, but where are they in two weeks? That's gonna be really, really interesting to see how that is, right? Yeah, right. I wanna address something real quick. So, somebody in the chat who's just, I have shown over and over again in the decade plus that I'm doing this, that I don't care where a guy is recruited. There's been plenty of guys that have shown up in their name that I didn't think very highly of, that when they show me something different, Kyron Williams was my lowest ranked recruit on offense in the 2019 class. And all I did is the last two years was praise him. You think Steve Anjali is a great player? Good for you. I hope you're right. But you can disagree with what we're saying, but here's the thing, I was actually at practice today. You weren't. I don't have an agenda. So I don't really care what anybody else says about Steve Anjali. You can think he's locked in at number two, but he won't be the starting quarterback next year because everybody in the program knows he's a great number two quarterback. These guys have got a lot to learn, but he's not that guy. So you can, I'm okay with you disagreeing with me about what kind of player Steve Anjali can be. That's totally fair. And I hope that people that think Steve Anjali can be a great player are right. I think he's a great kid. But don't turn your disagreement with my analysis into some childish, you're biased comment 'cause we're grownups on this show. We're not little babies that just pick our favorite players and we're just gonna love 'em no matter what or criticize 'em no matter what. This is a show for big boys. And if you can't handle that, find another show. You have plenty of options. And they can tell you that they're gonna get Derek Meadows. They're gonna get Derek Meadows for two months. But I'm gonna tell you the truth. They're not gonna get Derek Meadows. And guess what? Who's Derek Meadows committed to? Not Notre Dame. So if you like being lied to, feel free to follow somebody else's analysis. I'm gonna tell you the truth. Steve's a gamer. He's a good kid. He had a bad practice today. That's it. And I said that at the end of the evaluation, it's just one day. Not a big deal. - It wasn't an awful practice. - But if we're going through who had the best days, who had the, like I would say, Menchie had the best day in terms of overall consistency in the balls he was throwing. CJ Carr probably had the second best day. Riley Leonard was third. Steve Angeli was fourth. Someone's gotta be one. Someone's gotta be four. Anytime we go to these and you want us to give our honest opinion about what we see. Now, the other side of that is also Riley Leonard and Steve Angeli were playing against the ones in the twos. And I don't think that matters as much. But here I'm just, I'm just in this one for the last practice. - Exactly. - Because Steve was missing more than everybody else during when there was no defense out there. - Right. - So was Riley. - Right. - It's one practice, one practice. I think CJ Carr's the future of Notre Dame. Who did I say had the best practice today? Kenny Menchie. So where's the bias? - Right. - We talked about what Riley did wrong and his misses. We talked about Steve's. We talked about, Ken, you know, we talked about, you know, CJ, you talk about it when it gets to threes. The problem is there's just some people who can't separate their own emotions from an honest evaluation. And then we said at the end of the season, it's one practice. - Right. - And I wrote in my, it's easily correctable. All quarterbacks have those things where they get into that funk in camp. Sometimes it's first day at camp. Sometimes it's practice 15 where their mechanics get out of whack and they got to fix it. It's one day. - Right. - And so, am I supposed to never be critical of Steve Angeli in practice because you are too much in your feelings to take honest analysis of Steve? So if I didn't think a guy was a good player coming out of high school, I then can't say he had a bad practice unless some emotional infant thinks that I'm being critical of him, right? I mean, so I probably shouldn't be going off on this, but I can't stand that weak mindset, Sean, of people that just say, you said he had a bad practice. You're biased, the whole I.B. grow up. Grow up, right? Grow up, it's one practice. That's it, one practice. Did we say it's so obvious, Sean, that after today Steve Angeli should be fourth string. So obvious now. No, we said he had a bad, he had a bad practice in my opinion. He was missing on throws, a guy shouldn't miss on. He reads too quickly. He goes to his first read. And if you don't believe me, go watch the blue gold game again. Go watch the sun bowl. He hit his first read every time. That's just, that's the thing he's got to learn. He's had one career start. - He's like, of the four. - Those guys who have had one career start are gonna be that way early on. - He held onto the ball the longest today. - Yes. - Thank you. - Well, but that's your bias kicking in, Sean. That's clearly your bias. - You know, with your other ones goes faster when he's throwing, you know, what? - Yeah, would you rather sit here and just tell you everybody look great and not give you anything. - Right. - So just like do me a favor, email me your favorite players before practice reports. And I'll make sure to say nice things about him. - We know who to cross up, that's right. - About, you know, our bias before. So, you know, go find another channel. - I mean, honestly, you know, my expectation, especially kind of the way things started off, I'm like, oh, and Jelly's gonna, you know, like this thing on fire. And then we're gonna get, you know, all this, you know, kind of faux controversy and all this different stuff. But that didn't happen, you know, like, you know, and I'm not saying that's a good thing. It's just that I thought that we were gonna see maybe a little bit more that we- - Again, it's one practice for all we know. - Yeah, that's right. Steve's gonna come out and look like the second coming of Brady Quinn. And if he does, great, great. I got nothing against Steve. I love Owen kids prove me wrong. Love it. But let's just be grown-ups about it. That's all I ask, you can disagree with my take. But have some like, okay, what did you see from his practice today? I'm curious. So do you think my take is wrong? What did you see from him? Oh, you weren't at practice today? Okay, I got it. Good to know. Okay, anyway, we can move on now. I just had to say that 'cause I just, there's nothing I find more annoying than someone saying, like, your analysis is bias. Okay, I can be, I may be wrong. I may turn out to be wrong in my analysis of Steve Angeli. He may be the starting quarterback next year and go win the Heisman Trophy leaner championship. You know who's gonna be happy about that? Me. 'Cause I got nothing against Steve. I'm giving you an honest opinion of what I see and it's been consistent. And it's always been that way with him. And if he was so good, why did they go get a portal quarterback? You know, so I just, I can't stand that. Just be a grown-up, debate with me, discuss why you think I'm wrong. I can, hey, I think you're wrong in your evaluation of Steve Angeli. All right, cool, tell me why. Let's have that conversation like adults. But the whole, oh, your bias is just, it's childish, Sean. It's low hanging fruit, it's just childish. And I'm just, somebody said I'm setting the tone. Yes, I am setting the tone this year because we're gonna be adults on this channel. And if you disagree with me, cool, come at me, like a grown-up and we'll talk about it. If you think I'm wrong on something, it's cool. You can have that conversation. Look, we're gonna get some of the five-period practice windows over the next three weeks of training camp. We're not gonna get to see a lot. And again, I'm not complaining about what we do or don't get in terms of practice viewing. But this is the case, like when this kind of stuff happens, this is the case for, it would be nice to have another full practice so that you have something a couple of weeks from now, maybe to compare the two. But I promise you between one of the next six practices we get that Steve and Jelly will look the best in the drills. Yeah. And when he does, guess what? We'll tell ya. 'Cause there's no dog in this fight. I'm a Notre Dame fan. Like, do you actually think that I'm rooting against someone? Do you really think that? So that I can be right? Nobody wants these guys to fail. That's projection. We have to be honest with what we see. That's projection. So anyway, we can wrap up the quarterback compensation and move on 'cause there's some really good stuff, but I just can't stand that crap. I can't stand that crap. Okay. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (electronic beeping)
