(upbeat music) - What's good, Ebination? Welcome to another edition of the I.B. podcast. I'm excited. I'm back, rested, relaxed, rejuvenated, and what was the gift that I received in the first morning back at home is the availability to go watch Notre Dame football practice. I mean, they just don't draw it up like that, Brian. I'm just saying to just say, I'm excited about it. Oh, detroll on and wants to know how it was relaxing. It was everything that it should be why you still have five kids. And so, my idea of a vacation is just going like finding a beach and just chilling with my wife and just peaceful, try going to the beach with five kids. That is, the peaceful is not a word that comes up in that particular description, but for what it was-- - As much as you can do that's peaceful when you have five kids in any capacity? - No. - Okay. - No, no, but it was fun. It was good, the kids got a chance to just kind of get away and just be kids. We took away the devices for certain periods of time where we just got to have family time. And so, it was good. It was a lot of fun. And so, I appreciate that detroll, Hunter, but coming back, jumping right into football, baby. We got Notre Dame, getting into fall camp. High school starts on Monday, like, apparently practices do. And so, man, I'm fired up. It's just all football all the time now. And we actually get to talk about something that we witnessed on the field. Brian, and that's the exciting part for me, is that we actually get to discuss football. Not that we haven't been talking about football, but now we get to actually discuss football that we've seen at practice. And so, we got some availability this morning. And this is day three of availability. Day one was the full practice. Day two was the first part of practice. And today was the first part of practice. Today was the first day in full pads, or at least shells. They were in shells, excuse me. They did not have the lowers on. - And the way guys use the lowers nowadays, it's basically the same. - You and I had that conversation. - And there's DBs don't even wear lower body pads. - Exactly. - I mean, if you've ever seen, I mean, everybody knows what Cam Hart's knees look like, 'cause he's never had pads on his knees ever. - Yeah, the mythic 15 yard penalty for not covering your knees with pads, that's a thing of the past, even though it's technically a rule. You know, which is funny, because it's a rule that gets charged to the head coach, by the way, I don't know if anybody knew that, 'cause I've actually seen it happen. But, so no lowers, just uppers today, but there was some hitting going on. You got a chance to kind of hang down. - We call that shells. - Yes, that is correct. It was just shells, uppers. I've heard I called that before, but yeah, we call it shells. You were hanging out by the offensive lineman, defensive lineman there for a little while. - Line backers, yeah. - Yep, and so they got to pop a little bit, which is good. We always said, you know, you get to find a little bit of something out when they actually start hitting each other, as opposed to, you know, no pads and just helmets. And so we got to see a little bit today, and man, it was good to see these guys running around. There was a lot going on today. - Yeah, it was, Vincent. And, you know, I'll get into what I saw from the O-line and the D-line and the line backers and all that. But, you know, this is kind of your first chance to see the team. So I'm gonna kind of kick things off with a little bit of what, you know, what you saw. You were obviously out down there watching the quarterbacks and receivers and all that. And first time getting to see Mike Dembrock at a practice in about eight years. - Yeah. - And then since the last time we saw Coach D at a, the other Coach D. - Yeah. - No other name practice. So yeah, it was good to see that. It was good to see that. So I just want to get kind of your thoughts of what you saw today. - So a couple of things that I wanted to highlight. And this is gonna be a real quick event. So as Texas Chris just pointed out, did you update Vince that you were biased against, against, was it Angeli? Yeah. So we're supposed to remember the company rule that I've put out that everyone has to have the same opinion about Steven and Jelly. - Yes. - So make sure that you remember to do that. We don't ever say anything nice about Steven and Jelly. - Gotcha. - For IV bias. Just note that. - Well, forget why you're on vacation. - Yeah. You kind of took the words out of my mouth because I was going to talk about the quarterbacks here real quick. And no, but here's the thing. I have been going to practices and/or games and in a media, you know, light, sin. This is, I think, my 21st season, okay? Never have I ever, that's a fun game. Never have I ever seen the depth at quarterback that I have now officially seen with my own eyes. And what I mean by that is, for example, we saw that doing RVA's routes versus air, right? When they have four quarterbacks lined up and there'll be four routes. And so each quarterback throws to a different route and then they move down one spot and then they throw to a different route, they move down one spot, they throw to a different route, et cetera, until they've all thrown to every route and then they change the play. - Which they've been doing since forever. - It's a very, when you've got four to five quarterbacks, it's a great drill to run, right? You've got five and they were rotating. - Every team in America did that drill today. - Yes, that is correct, 100%. And they should be, to be honest with you. Here's the thing, watching the ball come out of the hands of all four of these guys was just different than it's been top to bottom, okay? Now, did some guys throw the ball better than other guys? Sure, no question. But, rare was it that there was a ball that hit the ground. I think I saw one incomplete pass. - It was dropped. - It was dropped by Cam Williams. - Which is what I was trying to keep track of. But, in the past, when we would watch this drill, you would watch a ball go, you knew who threw it. - Well, day one, you saw that Vince. - Okay. - You saw that a lot on day one. - Fair enough. - By day two and three, a lot better. - Fair enough. So, but day three, I was impressed at the talent level of all the quarterbacks. I mean, they were all putting the ball where it needed to go. Some balls got there quicker. Some balls got there a little prettier. But, all balls got to where they needed to go. All balls were on target. It was just a different looking quarterback group. And so, that definitely stood out. The second thing that stood out, and you kind of touched on it before you threw it to me, was just the presence of Mike Denbrock, to be honest with you. There was a session that they were just working motion. And that's not giving away the farm. Yeah, they're working on pre-snap motion. So, just putting guys in motion and just working on the timing of the motions, right? And so, they would have one guy who would be the motion man, and it was a drill to where he was going full speed and the quarterbacks had to snap it on time when the motion got to where they wanted it within the play. And Mike Denbrock was loud in a good way, and he was meticulous in a good way. It was, look, we need to be perfect, because if you don't snap the ball, when the motion is where it is supposed to be, then there was no point in having the motion in the first place. There's a reason we do a motion. There's a reason we do these things. And so, he was getting on the receivers, if they weren't going full speed, he was getting on the quarterbacks, if they weren't snapping it on time. And it was all about perfection. And he even was given a speech about the fact that we are working the details. And it's very detail-oriented, and all of these different things. And as Brian and I were walking out afterwards, we were kind of discussing that drill, and he's like, that's what these, you said, that's what these days are for. I mean, it's for the details, the meticulousness of the motions and of the steps and how you line up and what are your splits like, and all of these different things. That's exactly what they're supposed to be doing the first week to two weeks, week and a half. It's the meticulous things. That way it becomes second nature. It becomes, you know, you just do it because you've drilled it so much, right? And so that's what you're supposed to do. And it was just refreshing to hear Mike Dembrock's voice and how on point he wanted everybody on the offense to be on every single rep, every single time. And I just kind of, I was sitting in the little stands over there and I just, I probably had this stupid poopy and grin on my face. You know what I mean? Yeah, I can't say the other word, keep going. Yep, just like smiling, just watching the whole thing happen. And it was like, yeah, this is great. I was really, really enjoying watching just him coach up the entire offense. Well, the way that Vince is relaying how Mike Dembrock was communicating is a lot more calm than it actually was. It's a very demanding coach. And then I don't even, I'm not even remotely saying that as a negative. It's a, there's an intensity there. A, you don't want to not be the one that does it right. And then I mean that in a good way. But it was, it's noticeably different. And look, you know, I like Jared Parker quite a bit. He's a person, thought he had potential as a coach, but there's just a different presence. And same with Tom Maurice. You know, I've been higher on the last two coordinators than most fans, right? And, and it's just different. You know, you have a guy that's 60 years old that's been doing this for quite a long time. You know, he knows what, he knows a good football looks like and he knows what not very good football looks like. And he knows how to get to both. And, and that's something that you see, there's no doubt. And there's just a lot of bench, you know, talk about there's a lot of purpose to what they're doing. There's a lot of intentionality to what they're doing. And it's, it's nice to see that. That's a very, very obvious thing. You know, because, you know, we talk about leadership has to emerge from the player level. And that's very true. But there's very clear leadership coming from the coaching direction. And I don't even just mean Mike Denbrock. You just watch, for example, do you notice today when they were going from drill to drill? Do you know who the first person associated with the wide receiving core that would arrive at a spot? Do you remember who that was Vince? Did you watch Mike Brown? Whenever they would go from one part of the field, the other part of the field, Mike Brown's the first one to get there. - Yeah. - It's a, hey guys, we're gonna, I'm gonna show you the kind of intensity. And if your coach is sprinting to a part, - Sure. - And you're gonna feel like, "Hey man, I need to step up and get over there "and do what I need to do." And those are things that you kind of saw today that, you know, Joe Rudolph, you know, I don't necessarily love the way he coaches the old line. I mean, I just, I don't think there's enough attention to some of the things that you want to see. Maybe the tempo always, but very active, very demanding. He was a little salty today. He was not thrilled with the old line. There was one time where I just, his silence was probably louder than anything he said. Is the second team online was working and like four dudes just fell down. And you'd see him looking at him like, "You gotta be kidding me." - What? - You know, you're just like, you know, it's like, in his head, he's going like, "Goo's Fraba." You know what I mean? He's like, "Don't lose it." - Count to 10. - Yeah, but there was a lot of intentionality today with what they were doing offensively for sure. And defensively, very active over on the other side of the field. You know, Al Washington doing a lot of focus on technique. Max Buller really with a great emphasis today was a lot about block destruction and tackling technique. They were actually going through a tackling circuit on defense. And so Al Washington was working on with whoever was there, kind of getting hands on, locking out and getting off that block. So he started the D line, then the linebackers came to him, then the DBs came to him. So, and then Max Buller was working on a drill where they were starting here, they'd work around cans and then he would kind of go with a bag and they'd have to chase downhill and tackle the bag. And they were doing that same thing, Max. And then on another time they were, he was working on getting guys that initial, like that little skinny sled without the pad, where it's rock, then attacks, you know, shuffle, shuffle, and then boom downhill and take on another sled. You know, so they were doing a lot of that. And then everybody was doing it. Like it was everybody was cycling through. So they were doing a bit of a, you know, tackling circuit, but not just everyone's tackling, but it's about, okay, you can't tackle anybody if you can't get off a block, you know, so working on block destruction. So there was a lot of that that we saw today as well. - When I was walking past the defensive lineman as they were starting that rotation, that tackling circuit, what stuck out to me, and this has kind of been the case in the past, but I don't know, for whatever reason it stuck out to me today, is when they were kind of going through that first round of circuit, just they were kind of going over some dummies, they would run through the dummies and whatever, and they'd have to go kind of a high knee kind of a situation. Man, they're athletic. Like the defensive linemen are athletic, you know, and they were just moving so smoothly. - Super long through. - Yeah. - You really see that when you're up in the film, it's just a different looking glaze. Like Jordan Patel, and I don't even know that I saw him today. Practice, to be honest with you, I'm not, again, I'm not, but like you just look at him, you look at Howard Cross, and they're just so much beneath everybody else. - Yeah. - I mean, this is a very tall long, I mean, boobah cars, crazy length, RJ Oben, Bryce Young, Riley Mills, Armel Mucum, it's a very long group. - Yeah. - Very long group. - Yes. - You know who really, just real quick on the old line Vince. So yes, for day one, Pat Coogan was the number one left guard, Rocco Spindler was the number two right guard. Yesterday they flipped that. Rocco was the number one left guard, Pat was the number two right guard. Today they were both at left guard, and it was Pat first, Rocco second, but they were both working in with the second team. We saw that a little bit today, and they both kind of looked like you need him, like they normally look, right? You know, Rocco has to be more consistent with his foot working and coming off, right? When he does, it's really good when he doesn't. It's, he gets on him. And Coogan just doesn't have a lot of balance, honestly. He'll hit and then just lose his way. And that's gonna have to get figured out. You know who really impressed me today inside at guard? Obviously, obviously Billy Shrout had a good day working through things, but I'm really impressed. When you see him up close and personal, I'm just very impressed by Sullivan Apscher. Like his, he's huge. Like he's the only guy that doesn't, that Charles Jaggosall doesn't make look small. Well, him and Gerby Lambert, the only two guys that Charles Jaggosall doesn't make look small. Because Sullivan's every bit as tall as Charles, and he's not a whole lot thinner than Charles. But I mean, he moves really well, like really well. Just comes off, just the explosiveness through the hips. And I mean, he's still learning footwork things. And you could see it. What I liked about him is he would do something wrong and either the GA or Joe coach Rudolph would get on him. And you'd see him listening and you'd see him as they're talking, he's like kind of like, you know, like mimicking what they're trying to get him to do. And like, that's the sign to me of a kid that's co is really looking to receive that instruction. 'Cause he wants to get better. So he may not, I mean, right now he's, I don't think he's in the mix of left guard today. - Right. - Simply because you could tell there's still a lot he's learning. It's, he's gonna be, I won't be shocked if this year he's somewhat like Billy Schrauth was last year. Where, or at least what Billy Schrauth should have been last year. Like mill the season, if you guys as the veterans aren't playing well, it's gonna become his job. If the, if, if, if Kugan and, and, or Rocco, maybe both don't play better than they did last year, there may come a time where you look in at Southern Absure and say, okay, he's gonna make some mistakes, but he's gonna be dominant when he's in there too. And we need to, we need to figure out a way to get it done because either get beat because your guys aren't good enough or you're gonna get beat because you've got, the guy that don't know what he's doing, the guy that may not know what he's doing to the level those other guys does, he's gonna at least be dominant, right? And, and, you know, that's what then the first four, five, six games, you help him figure out what he's doing. And then once he, that light starts going a little bit, he, he's gonna be hard to keep off the field. Very hard to keep off the field. He's just, just, there's a different size and movement look to him that you're just like, yeah, that guy's got a chance to be pretty special here. You know, and, and we've seen though, I mean, Vince, you said this is your 21st year. I counted it, this is my 14th. - Okay. - Is my first year really covering the team was 2010. And then, of course, I took 12 and 13 off 'cause I was coaching. And so this is my 14th year covering Notre Dame. And I've seen Zach Martin for, you know, two years. I saw Quentin Nelson for four years, you know, I mean you, or three years 'cause I wasn't here and, no, yeah. 'Cause he was a freshman in 2014. I saw Mike MacGlinci for all, but his freshman year. I've seen Ronnie Stanley for most of his, you know, career. I saw a lot of Lee and Mike in his whole career. We, we know what a really good offensive lineman looks like. And when you look at Southern Abs, you're like, he looks like those guys, right? Where you just, there's something different about him. You don't know when the light's gonna go on, but when it does, boy, it's gonna be fun to watch. And it was very obvious today, 'cause I didn't pay attention to the line the first couple days outside of who was doing. - 'Cause there's no point in the pads on. - Exactly. - Today, you're like, okay, let me see who, let me see who's coming off the line with some urgency. - Yeah. - I will say as a whole, there was way too much lunging from the interior today. Way too much getting your front pads way too out in front of your feet. - Yeah, and there was some stance issues for me with a couple of guys. I don't necessarily wanna bring up who those guys were, but like too much butt in the air and which, if your butt's in the air, your head is down. And I got a problem with that when you're first starting out, because what are you gonna, when you take your first step, your head is down, that's not a great way to start off finding a guy to block. So I did have an issue with that, but one thing that did stand out to me in a positive way was just the length of a male Wagner's arms. I mean, when he would lock out a guy in front of him, it's like, you're not getting in there, man. Like the length of his arms is something else. I can see the upside there. You know what I mean? He's just very, very long. He's just very long. And if he can still do what he needs to do there, I like the a male Wagner at right tackle. I do, I like it a lot. One other position group I did wanna bring up though, Brian, that we talked about as we were walking to the car, you asked me about the running backs. - Yeah, I wanted to bring them up. Let me say what I forgot, I was gonna bring that up to you. Here's what I said yesterday, and contrary to popular belief, you are allowed to disagree with me. I look at this group and I say, look, I'm not saying that this group is the best position group on the team. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying they're going to be the best running back room in college football this year, but I'm saying this. When it comes to just God given physical talent and pound for pound, how they look, I think this is the most talented position group on the roster, man. That's saying something. - It's fun. - It's something big time compared to the other position groups that are mucho talented. - Yeah, D-line, O-line, T-N, B, you know, quarterback, yeah. - But the way they set things up at practice, and I kind of walked all the way around to the other side, and that's where the running backs always kind of do their thing, their individual work. And when the quarterbacks and the wide receivers were doing RVA's, runs versus air, the running backs came over and they were kind of doing some individual stuff, and they were running the gauntlet, and they had this, you know, basically this gauntlet that they run through, and then there's Dila McCulloch with a stick, with a boxing glove on the end of it, and he's just trying to rip the ball out when they come through the gauntlet, right? Every, let me just say this, these gauntlets are not easy to get through, first of all. Okay, and I remember the first, I never did one 'til I got to college. And I was like, what the freak? I was like, this is ridiculous, 'cause they made the quarterbacks, or the receivers go through it my freshman year, and I was like, what? (laughing) It's like, I was expecting to have a little bit more give. - Yeah, you gotta run through them suckers with some, you better, you gotta put your shoulders down and explode your hips through them suckers, otherwise you're gonna get, you know what I mean? - And that's with like a five yard head start, right? 'Cause you gotta kinda get some momentum to get through there. He had the running backs lined up at the start of the gauntlet. No running start whatsoever, it was just you gotta explode out of your stance and get through this gauntlet to a man, top guy all the way through the walk-ons by the way, 'cause there's a couple of walk-ons that don't look like walk-ons, I'll just say that. - Yeah, Jake Tafelski is a division one athlete. - Yeah. - Like that kid is not, I mean that kid's six foot 225 and built, right? - And Justin Fisher, there's no excess, anything on Justin Fisher, you know what I mean? So to a man, every one of these kids, they were lined up at the beginning of the gauntlet, but they would explode out of their stance and come through. They all got through without any issue whatsoever. And you could tell that that gauntlet was pushing back. Okay, this, it's just a pretty looking group. I mean, it's the best way I can put it. It's just a good looking group. We'll see what they can do with the ball in their hands, but I'm telling you right now, it's a good looking group, man. And it was fun to watch. Those guys just running through a gauntlet. That's all it was, they're just running through the gauntlet and it was fun to watch, Brian. - Yeah, and you know what else was fun to watch? Nobody ran through it backwards. Like Michael Park's pointed out. Do you remember when Cam McDaniel did that? - What? - He ran through that in the wrong way. - You're never getting through if you're running through the wrong way. - No, it only gives one way. - Yeah, it gives all Cam McDaniel. No, Cam McDaniel didn't do that. The running backs coach is the reason that that happens 'cause you start, or not the run, it's probably not the right max coach. It's probably whoever your GAA is, is supposed to get things set up. - The trainers, or not the trainers, but like the managers, they... - That's really funny. - Yeah, that was pretty good. - That's pretty funny. - You don't want to have that happen. - No, no, no you don't. - Unless you want to know what it's like to get hit in the hole by Mantiteo. That might be a good prepare for Mantite drill. Hey guys, we're facing Mantiteo today. So we're going to try to run through the gauntlet backwards. Got a lot of you who can get through that. You might have a chance to get the Mantite. So there you go, there you go. - Oh, it's fantastic. - I mean, that was events. I mean, again, five periods. It's all individual. Unfortunately, my guy then didn't get to see James or Ndell punt, but you didn't get to see him in the state. Did you see him inside when you walked inside? - Yeah. - That's a big boy in it. - Yeah, he was wearing like number 16. I thought he was a different number, but he's wearing number 16 at practice. - Call kid, man. - He's a big boy. - And he's all legs. - Well, he stands out. Look, he looks like he should be playing three on the basketball team. - Right. - And he's just super long, like the good way to put it. - Yeah, when he's hanging out with the rest of the specialists, he sticks out. I'll just say that. He's like at least a head taller than I think everybody else. I mean, he just, he sticks out compared to everybody else. And those guys are, you know, kind of off doing their own thing and whatever. So they kept snapping on the ball and he was just working on his drops. He never actually kicked one. - It's like, come on, kick one. - I know. - I was like really taking my time, like walking out of practice, hoping to see one, but that's not so much. So maybe next time, maybe next time. So that's going to do it for our practice report. Oh, a real quick linebacker-wise. - Oh yeah. - Seeing Jack Kaiser up close and personal, he's filled out a little bit. He still doesn't look like a normal inside linebacker, but man, he's a really explosive athlete. And he's actually, I was concerned that he might tighten up a little bit by putting on an extra 10 pounds. He did not. He looked really good through drills. Jaylen Snead, this is the most consistent and confident, comfortable. It's a good way of putting it, he's looked. Just technique, working through drills, very explosive. So first time I've ever seen Jaylen Snead go, well, this period, this first three days, 'cause I've now seen him do it twice. This is the first time I've ever seen Jaylen Snead go through practices where it looks like he has a purpose in mind, other than just I'm here 'cause I have to be. - That's a good way to put it. - Yeah. And so that's a great sign to see. Drake Bowen, very powerful. Like you can just see when he's not, he's not quite the side-to-side athlete that the other linebackers are, but downhill, he's very explosive, but he's a very powerful athlete. And this is the first time I really was this close to Kingston, Villain, I'm an Asa at a practice. And to see him up close and personal at his size and how well he moves was like, okay, like, you see it on film, I wasn't surprised by it. There's a difference of being surprised by something and just, okay, now I've seen it up close and personal. It's just, it's really good to see, but you saw, okay, this guy's gonna be special. And even a guy like Preston's Inter, like they gotta figure something out with Preston's Inter. They gotta figure something else out with Viper, tight end, something 'cause that kid's too big and too athletic not to be buried a linebacker. No, he should be where he is a linebacker. I'm not saying he shouldn't be further along. I mean, this is a loaded position, but some of the whole thing is like, when you look at a kid like that and how well he moves around and at his size, you're like, man, you gotta figure something out with that guy. - Right. - You know, and I just, man, you just look, this is a, Teddy Reesack is at least a year away physically, but movement-wise, you're like, yeah, they weren't lying. The people that told me he was a low four five were not lying to me when you watch that kid move around. So that was good to see, but I love the emphasis on efficient footwork that Max Bullah has is emphasizing in practice with the linebackers. - It's a lot of times when you see you guys go through the segmented drills, then you hit a sled, then you work through the side, and then you go downhill. They really focus on like exaggerating, like, you know, do this, then do this. They really segment it. He really focuses on, he wants it to be one fluid motion. Hit this, get off, get downhill. Work side to side, explode downhill, which I liked. I really liked that. I don't like when people segment things where it's like, it's a clear break, break, break, 'cause that's not how football works. Now, footballs, you gotta flow. You gotta go. That little thing right there, I thought, was really good to see. So that's my final practice observation from today. So that's gonna do it for our practice reports. Stick around, don't go anywhere, but make sure you hit the like button, the subscribe button, the notification bell, share it with your family and friends. All the good stuff, boards@hoursbreakdown.com, that way you get those practice reports ASAP, frankly. As soon as we get back, they get written up, posted, but you're only gonna get that kind of access if you're on the boards, boards@hoursbreakdown.com. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
