As promised, I spent more time watching the quarterbacks and running backs today. I don't have as many notes as I did yesterday, but here is what I gathered:
- Quarterbacks
- Brandon Peters looks to be more crisp with his release this fall than he was last season and maybe even than he was in the spring. He went to the Manning Passing Academy this summer, so maybe that helped him. His ball was tight in each of the throwing drills they did
- Art Sitkowski has a pretty quick release, but he missed his target in accuracy drills a fair amount. He has good arm strength though, that was clearly noticeable in the velocity behind his passes
- Matt Robinson was going through drills third, he looks smaller compared to Peters, Sitkowski, Duece Spann and Samari Collier
- Duece Spann was receiving direction from OC Tony Petersen on his mechanics a couple of times today. It appears that he has a tendency to short-arm it a little bit and not cock it all the way back. The kid has good arm strength though and I think that if he sure things up mechanically he can stick at QB
- Samari Collier is still working on his accuracy. He completely missed the net on one of his throws, but he has a big arm. Petersen pulled him aside once or twice to give him extra direction in what looked like his release.
- Runnings backs
- They change the order in which they go through handoffs a decent amount but it was Chase Brown and Chase Hayden at the top in most of the rotations.
- I didn't see MIke Epstein at practice in our 20 minutes. Bielema said that they are going to take it easy with him considering all of his injury history, that makes sense.
- Reggie Love went through most drills third but did receive handoffs from Peters
- Jakari Norwood as really good but and he showed off some nice cuts too, I've always been high on him but I think Illinois should try to get that speed on the field in some way
- Josh McCray is big. He's thick and would not be fun to try to tackle. He's not super fast, but he does have some speed
- Tight ends
- Barker is the more proven tight end and might be the best pass catcher on this roster, so don't forget about how important he could be to this offense.
- Griffin Moore also looked to be getting more opportunities near the top of the depth chart.
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