The Bears were back on the field Monday for the sixth day of practice at Memorial Stadium. It was the first day of work since Saturday's scrimmage, and the Bears went without full pads to begin the week.
VIDEOS
• Practice clips
• Post-practice interviews
NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
- Better intensity was the gist of the post-practice message from Justin Wilcox today. I was wondering while watching practice if there would be some type of comment about it because it did feel like the most low-energy practice so far this spring. Andrew Browning was really on the defensive line about not being fully awake today. Nate Burrell even acknowledged it himself and started to get on the rest of the defensive line about having more energy.
- One sign of progress coming out of Saturday's scrimmage was that there were far fewer visible mistakes during practice on both sides of the ball. The team periods were a lot more clean than some of the action Saturday, and that was something the staff had mentioned needed to improve. The was one bad snap from Dylan Jemtegaard that ended up slipping by Fernando Mendoza for a big loss. Outside of that there was a lot of clean play all the way around.
- The Bears have stuck with the same first offensive line unit for the last few practices and it continues to be T.J. Session at right tackle next to Sioape Vatikani with Brian Driscoll at center, Ender Aguilar at left guard next to Brayden Rohme. It felt like one of the better days for that unit overall outside of a miscue by Aguilar with a false start early in the first team period. The strength continues to be in the running game for that group, and that continued Monday. You can see some of the head-to-head work between the offensive and defensive lines in the practice clips above.
- It was a light day for Jaydn Ott at running back as Oregon transfer Byron Cardwell took most of the first-team reps during the team periods today. Ashton Stredick again was able to make some breakaway plays including an 18-yard run up the middle late in practice. Beaux Tagaloa was the real star of the running back group in Monday's practice as the Cal fullback had ample opportunities to carry the ball with the second group. Spavital called three straight running plays for Tagaloa and he picked up about 20 yards in those opportunities and all of them came with some kind of contact against a linebacker or DB.
- The best offensive play of the day went to Sam Jackson V who had was was ultimately called a 40-yard rush but could have gone for more had the play been allowed to finish. It was called dead when he broke through the last defender but it was a nice play design that featured a fantastic block from a pulling Vatikani that opened up the hole Jackson used to break the run.
- Defensively, the pass rush continues to be the very effective and there were a ton of big tackles made across the board. Myles Jernigan had another sack working against Aguilar late in the first team period. Transfers Sergio Allen and David Reese combined for a sack of Jackson plus Reese followed that up with another sack shortly after that. Most of the sacks could be credited to the coverage down field as Jackson didn't have many places to go with the ball in those instances.
- Kaleb Elarms-Orr had a tackle for loss and a big stop against Cardwell holding him to 1-yard shortly after the TFL. Myles Williams also had a tackle for loss in that team segment taking down Cardwell. He followed that up with a nice stop for no gain. Williams was among the most active and impactful players during all the team periods today.
- Illinois transfer receiver Brian Hightower is doing more and more each day over the last couple practices. He's been working with the receivers early in practice allowing him to catch passes with the quarterback group. There is some definite rust there, but he has some promise for sure. Once the team breaks out into individual and team periods he ends up leaving to go work on his own as he works his way back.
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