College football spring practice 2013: Ohio State underway, Jadeveon Clowney wasn’t playing 100 percent?
Several BCS schools got spring ball underway Tuesday, including Ohio State and South Carolina. Interesting things came out of their camps, as well as a snow day at NIU, a coach leaving Illinois, and Charlie Weis talking about March Madness?
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Urban Meyer got his second spring practice at Ohio State under way, and Land-Grant Holy Land was at Meyer's presser to give updates on a variety of things, including who will play in a defense now without John Simon, Zach Boren and Etienne Sabino. He spoke on how good it feels to be starting up again:
"I liked [Braxton Miller working with a quarterback guru]. The last time we were allowed to coach him was the Friday before our rivalry game."
"The quarterback guru working with Braxton Miller is a guy named Tom Herman," Meyer says jokingly.
Good to know Sports Illustrated isn’t the only entity fawning over the idea of Braxton Miller doing football things in March.
“Defensively there’s a lot of young puppies running around out there.”
Turns out all these years Animal Planet has been broadcasting the Puppy Bowl, it’s actually just been Ohio State spring football. Still adorable, though.
However, there was some bad news for Ohio State: Se'Von Pittman, a four-star defensive end who redshirted last season, was granted his release from Ohio State by Meyer's staff. It's not clear where he intends on transferring yet.
South Carolina
The Gamecocks started spring practice today, and present was Jadeveon Clowney, who won't be skipping his junior year of college football like everybody said he could but probably wouldn't. Clowney didn't speak to the press, but his defensive coordinator, Lorenzo Ward, did, saying Clowney never considered not playing and bringing up Maurice Clarett's failed attempt at not playing his junior year of college. Oh, and then he scared everybody:
DC Lorenzo Ward on Jadeveon Clowney. "If I could get him to play 100 percent every time, he might be unstoppable."
— Josh Kendall (@JoshatTheState) March 5, 2013
“PLEASE, DO NOT GET HIM TO PLAY 100 PERCENT EVERY TIME” -- every offensive lineman in the SEC and their families
Illinois
Tim Beckman’s Illini got spring football under way today and, as things usually work under Beckman, everything went exactly as planned. Oh, wait, sorry: Jim Bridge, the team’s offensive line coach hired less than two months ago, decided to take the same job at Purdue. From The Champaign Room:
Just when you thought the coaching staff was finally complete, Bridge leaves on the first day of spring practice. Tim Beckman now needs to overhaul the overhaul of his coaching staff.Needless to say, this puts a bit of a damper on the natural optimism that occurs when spring practice begins.
This means the B1G coaching carousel started by Jim Bolland taking the MSU offensive coordinator job will turn a little bit longer. The Illini had already gone through five assistant coaching changes this offseason. A sixth can’t hurt.
Also:
Illinois will practice inside today on the first day of spring ball. Pretty understandable, don't you think? twitter.com/IlliniFootball…
— Pete Roussel (@coachingsearch) March 5, 2013
Kansas
Charlie Weis begins year two at KU after a dismal 1-11 season, and Rock Chalk Talk got what he had to say about the team’s roster, which featured Weis citing March Madness as one of his favorite times of the year. He explained why Holden Tharp, a freshman All-American at linebacker in 2009, wouldn’t be playing football this year:
“He doesn’t think he’s capable of playing anymore, physically, even though he has a year left. All he wants to do is get healthy, graduate, and get out in the working world; which I highly encourage him to do. Not that I don’t highly encourage him to play football, but it was important for me that he graduate from Kansas. Now, it’s important to him as well,” Weis said.
Baylor
The Bears had a special visitor today at practice, and thanks to Art Briles’ new Twitter, we know about it:
Great practice, great people, a great player. RG3 hanging at practice today twitter.com/CoachArtBriles…
— Coach Art Briles (@CoachArtBriles) March 5, 2013
Fellow new Tweetin' coach Paul Johnson also had an update from practice:
Good workout this morning the guys really worked hard. Looking forward to Thursday morning and the managers joining in for a couple stations
— Paul Johnson (@GTPaulJohnson) March 5, 2013
We will be sure to follow up Thursday to find video/pictures of Georgia Tech football managers doing drills.
Northern Illinois
The Huskies actually don’t begin work in spring ball until March 20. Their team twitter feed showed why that’s a good idea:
The Saturn snow can't stop Jordan Lynch and the offensive line from practicing. @weatherchannel @wunderground twitter.com/NIUAthletics/s…
— NIU Huskie Athletics (@NIUAthletics) March 5, 2013
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