Wake up call: Lessons from week one

There really aren't any links to share this morning, so we're going to do something completely different with today's "Wake up call."

For the first time since practices began on August 1, Jim Grobe and his football team took yesterday off. Having been through eight days of practice and a scrimmage, now is the perfect time time to look back and see what we've learned about this team so far.

• The Demon Deacons have hit the ground running and Grobe has worked the team very hard. Until yesterday the team worked for an average of about two hours per day without a single day off. I haven't seen any indications that people are running out of gas, so I think this is a good sign for the strength and conditioning work the team did over the summer.

• Injuries are presenting a bit of a problem. The Deacons have avoided any big injuries to anyone expected to see significant playing time this season, but a minor injury bug does seem to have bitten the team. Lots of guys are coming up with injuries that shouldn't cause them to miss any games, but are definitely keeping them from getting the work they need in the preseason. I don't think it's at the point where people need to be worried about it having much effect on the season as a whole, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on.

• The questions about who is going to catch the ball have been answered. D.J. Boldin has definitely stepped up, as have Devon Brown, and Ben Wooster. Chip Brinkman, although injured right now, also appears to be ready to step up come August 28.

• Coach finally found a long snapper, or rather a long snapper came back to him. Greg Bechtel has stepped up and appears ready to competently fill the shoes left by Nick Jarvis. Despite having left the team before the spring, Bechtel appears ready to put the one bad snap of his career behind him and handle the task before him. I think this is a huge sigh of relief for the coaching staff and for the fans.

• The defense is as good as advertised. It's a strong unit with plenty of experience winning football games. They showed their readiness in the scrimmage Saturday night, and despite the fact that defenses are often ahead of their offensive counterparts this early in the season, this unit is ready to keep up that pace all season long.

• The offensive line is still of some concern. That's not to say that they aren't capable of getting the job done - I believe they are - but it's a good thing they have a couple more weeks of work to get their chemistry down. They should be a successful unit, they just need to keep working hard.

• More freshman might be ready to play this season than we expected. It's always hard to tell what coach is really thinking when he talks about freshman, but these quotes indicate a few guys make actually be ready for the challenge:

  One of the real issues we have right now is that we have five or six true freshmen who look really good. We're going to keep looking at them. I don't have a problem playing them if they're the real deal and they're going to get 20 or 30 snaps per game. We've got a bunch of those guys right now who look pretty good but we'll know more after Saturday.

I'm relatively certain the coaching staff would consider the first nine days worth of work a success, and as they go through a two-a-day today I expect we'll see more good things. As long as the injuries don't get any worse, this team should continue to improve and be ready to go to Waco on the 28th and take care of business.

photo by Dean Shore