By Hunt Palmer
The Tigers went back to shells for Tuesday’s workout. Many of the drills were either non-contact or light on contact. The players worked more on technique and assignment than tackling. There was an element of physicality in some of the periods, but after a few days in pads, Brian Kelly dialed it back a bit.
We saw the wide outs and tight ends running routes without a defense. Ke’Morreun Pimpton’s length and catch radius were on display early. He’s able to use all of that 6-foot-6-inch frame to go get the football.
It’s evident that Kyren Lacy, Chris Hilton and CJ Daniels are the top three wide receiver options. The second unit often features some combination of Zavion Thomas, Aaron Anderson, Kyle Parker and Shelton Sampson.
Thomas is running much better than he did last week.
When the running backs were incorporate into the drill, John Emery and Josh Williams looks the most comfortable running routes and catching the ball out of the backfield. Kaleb Jackson didn’t have any drops, but he doesn’t look as fluid catching the ball. You would be hard pressed to call his hands “soft”. No one passes the “big/fast/strong” test more glowingly than Jackson, but it’s the other portions of the game that he continues to work on.
Jackson was excellent in the pass protection drill. The running backs lined up just behind the line of scrimmage and took on blitzing edge players. Jackson won all three reps over Xavier Atkins, Greg Penn and Austin Ausberry. He was fired up in the process, too. That’s a sign Jackson knows what separates him from being the leading back on this roster.
Not much separates the two punters to this point. We see both daily. Peyton Todd hit an absolute boomer on Monday, but followed that up with a couple of short wobblers. Blake Ochsendorf has been slightly more consistent. He’s hit a couple of really good ones over the last week.
All of the returners have been steady aside from one Aaron Anderson muff on Tuesday. The odds are still in Thomas’s favor to earn those duties.
It was a strong afternoon from the defensive backs who are starting to make a move. The DBs forced six straight incompletions in a red zone 3-on-3 period. That drew Joe Sloan’s ire, “guys, we have to start winning some of these.” The wide outs have certainly won their share of reps throughout camp. It was good to see the secondary own a period.
There were two injuries. Both appeared minor.
Jacobian Guillory left a run game period with a knee injury. He was on the training table for 10 minutes and proceeded to do some stretching and bike work. Jelani Watkins got stepped on in a route. He was also doing some stretching and light, light jogging. Neither player left practice for the training room.
