Preseason Practice: Moving Up

Moving up the depth chart that is. Luther Maddy is making more plays in practice than Antoine Hopkins, the two are battling each other to start at defensive tackle along side of Derrick Hopkins.

"Luther makes more plays right now," Wiles said. "He's quicker, he's more explosive. That's what I'm seeing in practice. Right now, the way it looks, Luther looks like he's winning that job today."

And remember, Luther's practicing with a tweaked hammy.

"Bottom line: I want [Antoine] to make plays," said Wiles, not mincing words. "Right now, I don't see any ill effects from the knee. And he's being physical. We'll see on Saturday [in the scrimmage]. Like I said, Antoine … I don't know how to describe it. Physical kid, good player. Got to make more plays. That's what it boils down to."

In the past, the knock on Antoine from Wiles was not consistently giving 100%. That doesn't seem to be the criticism here. After being out with the knee injury, perhaps there's some mental rust and he's taking a little time to catch back up to the speed of the game.

Ronny Vandyke is now the co-No. 2 Whip backer with Alonzo Tweedy.

His best two plays came in the final period – a team period in which the offense goes against the defense, but the defenders only wrap up the ball carriers instead of tackling to the ground. He blitzed on one occasion, dodging a blocker and forcing the quarterback to release the ball early. Moments later, he nailed a ball carrier, and even though he didn't bring the ball carrier to the ground, he broke his own helmet.

I'm giddy. It takes some serious force to break a helmet, even if it's just one of the plastic pieces holding the face mask in place. But what does this say about the Whip competition? G-W remains the top dog, which either means he's having a good camp, or the two guys behind him aren't a threat. We know the latter isn't the case. However, I'll speculate that Tweedy hasn't been able to do enough to supplant G-W and the coaches want to see more out of Vandyke who Foster has already compared to Tech great James Anderson. By all accounts, Vandyke has thrived in practice, but if most of his work is against twos and threes, it's not a complete evaluation. With the first scrimmage coming up, a bump up the depth chart will see him playing more against more experienced and challenging competition. If I had to pick right now, it's either going to be G-W or Vandyke starting at Whip post-Georgia Tech.

BeamerBall lists Martin Scales as the No. 2 tailback behind Michael Holmes. Coleman is co-No. 3 with Gregory. #SCALES4HEISMAN