University of North Carolina Athletics
Friday Practice Notes
August 21, 2009 | Football
Aug. 21, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
The team began its final day of two-a-days on a cloudy, muggy morning. They will scrimmage Saturday morning and Butch Davis said that between 50-60 plays will be scripted, not including about 15-20 special teams plays.
The coaches and players will look at the tape of the scrimmage Saturday afternoon and evaluate it as if it were game tape. Since Tuesday is the first day of classes, the players will begin a game-week type of schedule starting Monday with afternoon meetings and practices at night.
The running backs carry a football around practice that is covered in a slippery blue spandex. The group carried the balls around even through leg stretches.
The wide receivers might be losing a bit of their height - the 6-5, 220-pound Rashad Mason has been practicing with the tight ends.
A.J. Blue was playing quarterback in running back drills, throwing passes to the backs. Bobby Rome made quite a few grabs and Butch Davis even stopped by the drill to show his appreciation with a "Good job, B. Rome."
Offensive coordinator John Shoop might have worked up more of a sweat than half of his players. He is ball of energy, running around calling plays, shouting encouragement and constantly in motion.
Johnny White made an eyebrow-raising one-handed grab on the sideline. Ryan Houston made another nice catch despite Zach Brown being draped all over him.
All the preseason talk about the wide receivers has anointed Greg Little the de facto leader, considering he is the most experienced. But Davis, admitting he had fallen into that trap as well, said that's not entirely fair.
"Greg Little has got to take care of Greg Little," Davis said. "He can be a great role model. He can go out and practice hard. But I'm not too concerned about him being a mentor and being a coach on the field. If you want to set a great example for all those young wide receivers, go out and perform."
One benefit of this training camp is that Davis and his staff have been able to take 15-20 minutes of each practice to work on elements of the game that the team might face, like the option offense or certain types of blitzes.
"In years past, we really didn't take much time during training camp to focus on things that you might see because we were trying to grow our own football team," Davis said. "Now, we've got enough experience of guys that are returning that you feel like now, when you have a one-week preparation for somebody, there's some carryover for things that they did last year and things that we did during training camp."
Mike Ingersoll remained out of practice on Friday with an ankle injury. Zack Pianalto also did not practice; he is day-to-day with a hamstring injury.
