Venue: Kibbie Dome
Format:
Full pads, wrap-up but don’t take down. Don’t hit the quarterbacks
Practice Rundown:
Position Drills, 7-on-7 skelton drill, first team offense and defense vs. scout team, punt/kickoff return drills, special teams drills, sprints
Highlights:
Coach Petrino was not happy with his team’s performance during practice. He yelled at several players and also stopped practice to make the team run sprints for under preforming.
I think it safe to say that it is the “Chad Chalich show” from now on. Chalich has taken a majority of the first team snaps for the second consecutive week. Don’t expect McCain or the other quarterbacks to play much on Saturday. Petrino looks like he is giving the reins to Chalich.
The scout team offense was running a lot of screens and ran a lot out of the spread offense, preparing the defense for Fresno State. While they gave up a few big plays, they also stopped many of the plays for negative or no gain. Only time will tell if the defense is truly prepared for the likes of quarterback Derek Carr and the high-octane offense of the Bulldogs.
Steven Matlock and Spencer Beale continue to get a bunch of the first team reps on the offensive linge and continue to impress the coaches. They are expected to still get playing time on the offensive line, even after the original five starters are healthy enough to return. The offensive line had its best outing last week with Matlock and Beale in the lineup.
Other Observations:
Two notable Vandals sat out again this week. Offensive lineman Dallas Sandberg continues to sit out with an undisclosed injury while safety Trey Williams looks to have aggravated a nagging injury that has affected him the whole season.
Cornerbacks Solomon Dixon and Jayshawn Jordan are the two cornerbacks that are getting the most reps with the first team. Christian Whitehead and Desmond Banks are also rotating in and getting reps but expect Dixon and Jordan to start against Fresno State.
The Vandals have a new kicker that is rotating in with the special teams players but his name is not on the roster yet so we will have to wait and see what his role with the team will be.
Running back Richard Montgomery seemed a little slow at practice Wednesday. Coach Petrino called him out a couple of time for not hustling back to the huddle and even made him sit out a couple of plays. It looks like he could be dinged up.
What they said:
“It was cool. Steve (Matlock) is a good player; he brings a lot of energy to our o-line. He’s still young and so we’re working with him each day getting things polished up. We’ve been all through that first start, it’s jittery, you’re nervous, just have to keep that positive energy, keeping his mind right telling him he’s doing a good job, which he was. We’re not feeding him anything that’s not true. He was playing really well, played hard, made some great plays, made some mistakes, but everyone else was doing the same thing, so he did a good job stepping in there.” — Mike Marboe, center, on freshman Steve Matlock
“You let the practices speak for themselves, and if a guy is practicing well and he’s holding his own then he probably deserves a chance. And Steve, since day one when he’s got here he’s battled and he’s shown toughness and I think that along with now learning, it’s an advanced offense and being able to put together, ‘Okay I do this now, I do this when this happens’ then his toughness has always been the same. So getting him up to speed kind of, and you know, he puts a ton of extra work in each work to prepare himself and the results were definitely what we were hoping home. Nervous? No, it was great.” —Jon Carvin, offensive line coach, on freshman Steve Matlock
“I just got to learn from what I did good and what I did bad, so there’s always areas where our team does really good and I just went up last night and learned what I can improve on and you know, that’s what I’m going to do is keep improving and keep getting better because I have a long way to be a great quarterback here at the University of Idaho.” — Chad Chalich, quarterback