I've been around Bobcat football teams for going on almost 21 years, and I have to say that what I saw yesterday was amazing. Several points to ponder from yesterday's practice:
1. The team was the most polished team I've ever seen at Bobcat stadium, and that's saying a lot. Last year's team
looked like an FCS led squad, while this year's team is night and day different. This was a legit looking FBS squad, despite being a little undersized still. They were disciplined, for the most part were not playing out of position, and the general atmosphere was that of a well coached team.
2. A lot of the drills they were doing were drills that I've never seen being done in San Marcos, even during the Fran years (who had coached at Bama, TCU and A&M before coming back here). Not only that, but they
MADE SENSE for what an FBS squad is supposed to be coached, it was never "what on earth does that do for them on gameday?" more in the sense that "wow, why was that never taught here!?"
3.
The quarterbacks: when I heard Spavital talk about having a close race between four QBs, I thought it was a bad omen. The old adage of “If you have two QBs, it means you don’t have one” came to mind Turns out the QB whisperer knew exactly what he was talking about. All four QBs (Jensen, Gipson, Vitt and Case) were able to efficiently move the ball on different drives. Gipson still has some accuracy issues (throws high on almost every throw, but not too bad), but you can tell he’s worked hard in the offseason to improve in that department. An ideal case would be to redshirt Vitt & Case, have Jensen at QB1 and Gipson as his primary backup. As of now, any one of those four can run this offense (with a slight edge for Jensen), and redshirting Vitt and Case would mean we are set at QB for the next 5 years.
4.
The offense: When I say this team looked like a legit FBS squad, it was never more apparent than on the offense. The scheme and personnel use was very reminiscent of the good TCU, A&M, and West Virginia teams, very polished and efficient are the main phrases that keep coming to mind. The one drawback is that the WRs and TEs had way way way too many drops, that needs to be locked down before the opening game.
5.
The Head Coach: Coach Spavital has surrounded himself with such a good cast, that most the practice he seemed completely at ease with the assistants doing their jobs. He actually spent more time casually interacting with onlookers and media instead of micro-managing the position drills or the game situations. The one word that can describe the entire practice session was efficient. This team looked legit ready to win 7-9 games right out of the gate.
6.)
The Defense: For the most part, they seemed to be at the same place where they left off last season, with the exception that the DBs aren't looking for the ball as much as they did last season which is allowing more drives to continue. Having said that though, the throwing windows are a lot more narrow because, again....the team as a whole is not playing out of position. The LBs have been really good at stopping the run so far and keeping everything in front of them in pass coverage. For being practice #5 (I believe), this team looked ready to start installing the A&M game plan already which places them about a week and a half ahead of a usual Fall camp schedule.
7.)
Special Teams: Didn't see too much in this department, except some punts had nice distance but there were a couple of muffed punt returns by the returners. Didn't see any FG attempts or anything, but it did look like we had 6-8 total punters/kickers milling around.
