Thursday Practice Videos

Inside LSU practice - QBs to RBs and the Mustang package

Two-sport standout Spencer Ware, pictured left, figures to be the primary option at running back Saturday with Michael Ford missing in action the past week (photo by Maggie Bowles).

By BEN LOVE
Tiger Rag Editor

The final spring practice for LSU football is in the books, with the team having conducted more or less a walk-through Thursday afternoon in helmets outside at the Charles McClendon Practice Facility.

There are no new absences or injuries to report, but wide receiver Kadron Boone was back out there working with the wide-outs today.

Here are a string of observations I made at the Ponderosa: Defensive coordinator John Chavis was really heated with Mike linebacker Kevin Minter while the LBs and DBs came together to work on Mustang drops into zone. The yelling quickly turned into Chavis forcing Minter to take a seat. That’s why, when you view the Flip Video footage below of the Mustang portion, D.J. Welter reps with the first group of ‘backers (alongside Ryan Baker). From everything we’ve heard this spring, Chavis intends to use Baker and Karnell Hatcher as his two primary linebackers next fall when the team goes Mustang (which is basically a variation of LSU’s dime or 3-2-6 defense). With Hatcher still in a green jersey and Stefoin Francois out, today’s Mustang group started as Baker-Minter before the aforementioned chew-out. Then, when the ‘D’ brought in its second team, Tahj Jones and Lamin Barrow worked at the linebacker spots … The quarterbacks worked on throwing the deep ball quite a bit today. First, I saw them working on deep post-corners to the wide-outs before then throwing deep seam routes to the receivers. All this, of course, before tossing their daily corner routes to the tight ends. From what I witnessed, Jarrett Lee threw the deep ball the best of the three (at least most consistently), with Zach Mettenberger No. 2 and Jordan Jefferson No. 3, at least from today’s sampling. One other thing that was obvious: Mettenberger’s starting to get a lot of his touch back on these throws. Previous knocks that his ball might be too flat and on a frozen rope all the time weren’t of concern this afternoon … As thin as LSU is at running back right now with Michael Ford and Kenny Hilliard out, they’re going to be equally thin during Saturday’s spring game at defensive end. There look to be only four ends with experience who will go on Saturday — Ken Adams, KeKe Mingo, Chancey Aghayere and Justin Maclin (Jordan Allen does present an inexperienced option). This is due in large part to Sam Montgomery being out and also because of Lavar Edwards’ ankle injury.

The three videos below give you a glimpse of the running backs catching routes out of the backfield (with the QBs in the shotgun), the defensive backs shuffling then catching balls 10 yards down the field and finally the back seven defenders working through their zone drops (while some blitz) out of the Mustang package. On the final video, please note that only the first snap captures first-team players. The final two are all second-stringers.

Enjoy.

1. RBs catch balls out of backfield: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8c6_MAmxbU