I have not seen this reported anywhere, and my review won't run until at least Monday so I thought I would get this out there for discussion. Watching the Periscope broadcast, Joel Caleb was working as a receiver in the drill where the DBs play man coverage against the WRs. Caleb was lining up against Mook Reynolds on the streaming video when the coaches called an abrupt ending to the drill. Once team play started, all the tailback work went to Travon McMillian, DJ Reid, Jerome Wright (who played in one back passing sets much like Sam Rogers did last season) Steven Peoples, and Logan Adkins. I could not tell if Caleb was getting repetitions on the outside based on the limited view with Periscope, but I didn't see him get a single repetition at tailback.
More coming in my review...
Comments
Good eye. I suppose it makes sense. If Joel was going to make a name for himself at tailback, it would have been last year. Now we suddenly have a need for depth at receiver, and at this point I'm sure Caleb just wants to see the field any way he can.
Great call out. Hope he can make it work to his advantage.
Btw- you are a fishing tease as well French!
Well, he is an excellent WR in NCAA 2014; particularly in 5-wide sets I like to use to open a comfortable lead early in the game.
I see this as really good news, hopefully he'll contribute and bring some length and athleticism to that not so deep position
If this does work out, what a blunder moving him in the first place. I really want Caleb to do well, but I am afraid he has a tough road ahead.
Bless this kid. He's done everything the team has asked of him. Hope he can finally get on the field.
I wish the video could tell us which receiver group he was working with. Periscope was awesome for watching the OL. However anything happening down field was completely lost.
Well that's good, because OLine is what I most anticipate hearing about!
Can't wait for your OL analysis of the young guys. Are the young floor kicking the young OL butts?
I thought the starting group did a good job. There was one bust on a pass protection, but I couldn't see if it was Gallo or Teller that allowed Clarke to come free up the middle. The 2nd D never really stopped the first team offense. Beamer was only giving each group a limited number of plays. At least three times Beamer stopped drives where the first team offense was inside the red zone on a 1st or 2nd down and he switched things out.
The second group of OL, going mostly against the starting group, struggled. They still need more bodies. I couldn't make out much of Austin Clark.
There were 5 sacks and 5 tfl did most come against second group? Also isnt the Oline really going against the second and 3rd dlines right now with Maddy, Marshal and Ekenem out.
There were two sacks (Nigel Williams and Deon Clarke) against the first team OL. I don't remember there being a tackle for a loss except for Nijman's tackle where Motley made a poor read on an inverted veer. On the sacks, one was a play action where Motley didn't get the ball out. I cover that in more detail in my film review. Clarke's sack came on a blitz right up the middle. Periscope had a poor angle so I couldn't see where the bust was.
Most of the top OL's work came against Nijman-Mihota-Walker-Keihn with Lydon as the mike and Moss/Minor rotating at backer.
Did you see enough of Nijman to have a take?
He struggled in the team work, and I cover it in more detail. That isn't shocking. The kid is getting a ton of reps and he has been a college football player for a week. It will take time.
That said, when you watched him in drills, especially the pass rush drill, he looked much quicker than he did on his high school film. More importantly, he did a terrific job of using his reach to gain leverage. Keep in mind, he was going against another guy learning his position-left tackle Darius Redman.
Tackle scares the bejesus out of me. Hansen and McLaughlin had pretty good days (except for a penalty on McLaughlin that resulted in a TD being called back.) Osterloh wasn't awful, but he isn't an option on the left side. Redman isn't a guy that can go on the field and be effective at left tackle right now. Austin Clark is still working with the 3's, so measuring his progress is difficult when he is working against kids who most likely won't dress. Mike Arnold and D'Andre Plantin are going to get every chance to work for that number 2 left tackle spot in the fall. Someone has to step up there, and I didn't see a guy who can fit that role on the Periscope yesterday.
Knee jerk reaction, French, does the line look better than it did after the first scrimmage last season, or is the loss of the upperclassmen glaringly apparent?
It looks better than the first scrimmage I watched, which was the 3rd scrimmage of the spring. Their success came running to the left side, and we didn't see enough of Hansen vs Dadi to get a good look as to how Hansen would fare vs a top flight DE. However, for running a very small variety of plays, things looked promising minus penalities.
I hate to burst your bubble, but I saw the Caleb scoop reported on another site yesterday afternoon.
Nevertheless, thanks for the write-up.
This came across a little harsh, I think
Why?
The "I hate to burst your bubble but someone else already did this" line.
I don't think French was posting so much as a "HEY GUYS LOOK I'M FIRST!!!11!!" as a "Hey, we're going to have a post about this soon, isn't that interesting?"
At the very least, if you want to burst his bubble so badly, just say, "Yeah, I saw this interesting article here [insert link here] talking about that"
Yep- I don't have paywall site accounts. Nothing is wrong. With those sites, but I don't utilize them. I do track our beat writers, the print media beat writers, and all the blog writers on Twitter and their stories. I have not seen any tweets, articles, or blogs even mentioning Caleb's name, much less a position change. Hence the title.
There are lots of other observations in my piece. I hope you all find them insightful. I only wish that I could offer more on the DB situation. I get the feeling that Adonis Alexander is rapidly moving up the coaches ladder, but I would like to see more.
It wasn't a pay piece. It was just someone who wrote a quick summary of the scrimmage on another site and it mentioned (among a number of things) that Caleb was working with receivers. They probably posted it very shortly after the scrimmage or maybe even during the scrimmage.
I wasn't trying to insult you. But your first sentence, IIRC, was that you hadn't seen it elsewhere and I didn't want you or anyone else to inadvertently claim you were the first to note it.
And again, as always, thanks for the write-up.
Read the first sentence not in the context of "breaking news" and more in the context of "there have been two threads in which people were talking about the scrimmage, and no one said anything about Joel Caleb, but he's always of interest to the fan base, so here's something I saw."
90% of the internet that isn't porn is kitties and silly arguments.
So like 2.4% of the internet.
Pretty sure that cat is taking revenge on a group of picnic-goers by rolling that watermelon into the lake.
I don't think so, RocketHokie13. Cats do what cats do for themselves alone to serve their narcissitic world view. Anything, or anyone else is totally irrelevant to them except for food. Not a fan, myself.
Wait a minute. You don't like cats?
You're dead to me./s
Seriously though, #teamcat
So what you're saying is not to deny your...nevermind.
That would be preferable, yes. :D
I once broke up with a guy over a cat (well it was one reason). I hate cats!
I thought we were friends.
Not anymore I don't!
OMG how did you get a pic of HER??!?!?!
that cat appears to be walking on water...
that's odd, the only porn I watch involves cats having silly arguments....
girl cat: here's that new cat litter
boy cat: where'd you get it
girl cat: uh, sorry I can't tell you
boy cat: I NEED TO KNOW YOUR SOURCES
I dunno, both the cat and the watermelon look pretty dry. I'd say the cat is stopping the watermelon from rolling into the lake.
Fair enough. But my post should also be read in the context I described and, FWIW, the following was written today by a KeyPlay contributor illustrates exactly what my thinking was:
"French noticed receiver turned tailback turned receiver Joel Caleb repping with the wideouts before anyone else."
Well hopefully he sticks with it and can contribute. A few years back Justin Hamilton bounced around and played 2 or 3 years in the NFL.
I moved Joel Caleb to reciever on NCAA 14 and because the 3rd receiver on the depth chart plays slot, that's where he ended up. He wasn't too bad either. He's a good athlete. That game doesn't really take route running too much into account though, which is crucial as a slot receiver and any receiver really. I do hope they find a spot for him, and that's certainly not at tailback unless 6 players get hurt.
If he can run some routes, he would be lethal in sweeps. Him or Newsome breaking one for yardage changes the game.
Burden has said he wants 6-8 to play. Moorehead said he wanted to play a lot, but obviously Isaih and Can stayed on the field a lot. Was everybody besides Willie in the doghouse or is the drop off that significant?
based on what I saw, the dropoff was significant. Parker was the one guy on the roster that could have given something, but he left the team and was hurt for stretches last fall.
What do you make of Deon Newsome? Did they ever do anything with him last year but run jet sweeps and fake jet sweeps? Maybe a WR screen or two? I don't remember him ever running down field routes.
I am in the same boat. It is impossible to tell from the Periscope video.
Did we see anything notable out of Jaylen Bradshaw on Saturday?
Bless this kid, what is this his 4th position since being a recruiticorn? Definitely a trooper and team player, hopefully we can finally utilize his nice athletic gifts finally...
His third, and is the same as his first. WR->RB->WR
could have sworn he was listed as a db for awhile but that might be my oldmaness showing...
Steven Peoples runs like a Tasmanian Devil in that highlight reel. At 1:22 he is in the process of being tackled, keeps his eyes up, sheds the original tackler, spins to make the would-be tackler whiff, and gains an additional 5 yards. If you ask me, that's beast mode. He also gives good effort on the next play. On the Beamer Ball snapchat story you see Peoples making some nice blocks to spring a couple of large runs.
We know Rogers is THE fullback, but is there a role for someone that gives as much effort as Peoples?
Jerome Wright is the number 2 at tailback, but we know both he and Peoples are competing for the spot. It is difficult to evaluate both head to head. Peoples had some moments, but he was going with the 3rd team offensive group and was essentially running pro-formation inside zones. The 1st team O didn't even get into a pro-formation alignment one time. Wright made a nice catch out of the backfield, however he took a brutal false start penalty.
I didn't notice the difference in formations between different groupings, but I like it. It's like the 3rd team is getting the spring practice we saw all 2013 - the same thing over and over until they get the basics down. If a guy moves up, the 2nd group does most of the offense and the first group is full-bore with everything Lefty's got up his sleeve. Is that how you saw things working out (from the limited periscope view)?
the third group ran offset I stuff. The fullback lined up like an h-back, and they ran power and inside zone
I've said this for a while...Caleb needs to find a way to get on the field. His is a tremendous athlete and match up nightmare. I would LOVE to see him used as a kick return specialist (imagine his size/speed/vision in the open field). Would also get him a package of 5-10 plays at WR. Get him matched up on a LB or undersized CB...that's 6 points. Also he would instantly be the best blocker at WR.