Wednesday morning practice report — 8/14/13

It’s time for two-a-days, and Idaho coach Paul Petrino is continuing to push his team to work and up their tempo. Following special teams drills Petrino had his first team do eleven-on-elevens with the no-huddle and up-tempo along with live tackling testing to see how capable the players were of going and going without break. As soon as a touchdown was scored the offense would line right back up and go the other way.

The defense left a lot to be desired, Petrino said.

“I’m really pushing them hard, we did a long team period, went fast, live tackle, get after it. And really just trying to make them mentally tough with a whole lot of plays in a row. Offense had a great day, defense needs to get a lot tougher. When they kept doing a lot of plays in a row they weren’t mentally tough enough,” Petrino said.

Consistency is what Petrino said he is looking for.

“There’s different groups that are improving here and there. We just have to get consistent, where we come out here everyday and get better, so we’re not going up and down,” he said. We worked the tar out of them this morning so it was a good hard practice and now we’ll see who has the mental toughness to come out and work this afternoon.”

Other notes

– Roman Runner will be getting reps at cornerback during the afternoon practices. The change was implemented on Monday. Petrino said Runner will be a two-way player, three-way if you include special teams.

“We’re going to do it, it might just be a nickel package, it might just be during certain things. When you go punt and punt return with the gunners and the guys holding them up Roman is the best press guy we got, so we gotta get him over there and have him play some corner for us,” Petrino said of the change.

– Petrino hopes to get strong tackle Jesse Davis back for the scrimmage on Saturday. Left guard Dallas Sandberg is expected to be back next week for contact drills.

– Petrino said Marc Millan has been the best linebacker for Idaho during the fall. Four guys are competing for the two spots after him, those four are likely Juan Martinez, Broc Westlake, Eric Tuipulotu and Matt Willis.

“Our front seven has to be the strength of our defense, I think they’re improving,” Petrino said.

Secondary picture coming together

– I also talked to Petrino about the secondary and the freshmen breaking through with that group. Solomon Dixon is the leader of the group at corner, with Jayshawn Jordan and Delency Parham going back and forth there, Petrino said. As for safety? “I’d say at safety, one of our freshmen Jordan (Grabski) is probably playing the best.” Grabski is competing with Bradley Njoku and Tom Hennessey in the defensive backfield with Trey Williams sitting out with an injury.

I also caught up with cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens at practice this morning about his group:

On what he’s trying to accomplish with such a young group of corners: “Discipline. We got a lot of young guys in our unit in the defensive backfield but we wanted to come in and first thing you got to do to be a great DB is be disciplined. That’s what we’re trying to develop right now, just getting our stance good, peddle good, every play. That’s what our main focus is on.”

On what Solomon Dixon is doing so well: “He has great athletic ability, he’s hungry, he works hard, so we just have to keep on making him grow.”

On the biggest challenge for freshmen corners Desmond Banks and Armond Hawkins: “The speed of the game, it’s fast, so they’re still trying to adjust to it. The way we practice is tough, so they just have to keep learning and learning. They’ll be good players, we got two good gets, they’ll be real good down the line and maybe this year too.”

On his NFL experience helping his coaching style: “Oh yeah, I always give them tidbits, they can work on those things away from the field and on the field, so, always trying to teach.”

That’s all for Wednesday.