Virginia Tech Practice Report: Freshman DB's Edition

Practices were once again closed to the media (expect this to be the norm for awhile), however us media folks were granted the opportunity to speak with secondary coach Torrian Gray as well as a few freshman DBs.

Maybe the biggest news to come out of the media session was that freshman DB Mook Reynolds loves to rap, and although he abstained from "spitting bars" to the media scrum in attendance. For what it's worth, he considers himself to be a skilled freestyle rapper. Also, he keeps his lyrics clean.

According to Reynolds, to officially become initiated into Virginia Tech's secondary or "D Block," you have to sing (or rap) in front of the entire unit.

I digress. Moving on to football-related discussions...

Here were some things of note from Coach Gray:

He likes what he's seen from Desmond Frye at the rover spot (and says he he'll be the starter based on experience) and referred to freshman backup Adonis Alexander as "super athletic."

Redshirt freshman Terrell Edmunds is working at the boundary corner spot (the first August depth chart had him listed at free safety.)

CB Brandon Facyson had a "lower extremity" setback last week, unrelated to the leg he broke and had surgery on last year.

He referred to Kendall Fuller is "as smart of a kid as I've ever coached."

On Donovan Riley: "Well we moved him around. Tried him at rover, played him at corner, just trying to find the best fits for us right now. You know, corner is more natural for him, but if we need to move him in at safety, you know it's not his greatest asset, but we've got flexibility with him there. But right now, we'll see what he looks like on the outside."

On Chuck Clark penciled in at free safety: "I see a guy who's a natural guy that takes ownership of the defense, makes the calls, makes the checks, you know it's just him actually getting the physical reps there, instead of mentally, 'hey, we may put you at free safety' or whatnot, so he's doing a great job at fall camp for us."

Player Quotes

Freshman rover Adonis Alexander

ON TRANSITIONING FROM FREE SAFETY TO ROVER:

"It's a lot easier because one, you got to guard tight ends, and that's always easy. My big thing is coming down and hitting, so it takes away a little bit of the coverage, but I mean, I've been working on my coverage. My coverage is great, now. But my main part of my game is tackling, so the rover helps me enforce that."

ON WHAT HE'S IMPROVED UPON AS A DEFENSIVE BACK:

"I feel like for the most part, my cover skills because I could already come down and hit. But covering was the hard part for me in high school, but you know I've worked on it and gotten better."

ON THE BENEFITS OF JOINING THE TEAM IN THE SPRING:

"Being here in the spring, that really helped me because the defensive playbook is really complicated and me being here to learn it for a couple months ahead of everybody else, you know, to get used to it, it helped me a lot. And I got used to the different changes in the speed from high school to college, so yeah, it's a big help."

ON THE COMPARISONS COACHES HAVE MADE TO KAM CHANCELLOR:

"That's just music to my ears, really. It makes me want to work harder. That was already one of my favorite safeties who I wanted to model my game after. So hearing that was great."

ON TORRIAN GRAY AS A COACH:

"I've never had anybody like him. I feel like he brings the best out of all his players. Since he's so loud, he expects you to be great, so every time you mess up, you're going to hear him and it's going to make you not want to mess up again."

Freshman nickelback Mook Reynolds

ON LEARNING FROM KENDALL FULLER AND BRANDON FACYSON:

"Now having Brandon (Facyson) back, I talk to him a lot on how he plays certain things, certain coverages, so that I can, you know, be more effective from what he picked up on freshman year, I can go and apply that to my freshman year. I did the same with Kendall (Fuller.) It just gives you a different kind of perspective on how to play things, gives you a boost and makes you more effective."

ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NICKEL AND CORNER:

"Coverage-wise, it's not that different from corner. The only difference is sometimes you have safety help closer to you, so you're not on as much of an island as you would be at corner. But as far as competition, it's pretty much the same. It's a few bigger guys, it's a few faster guys with slots and tight ends, but you know it's a natural position. I kind of played that same position in high school, so instinctively, you know, that's my strong suit with that position. I like being around the ball. I like covering, so it really brings out what I like to play around. "

ON BEING MOVED AROUND TO DIFFERENT POSITIONS IN THE SECONDARY:

"Coach (Torrian Gray) likes flexibility in the secondary, so you're not just specialized in one position. You don't just do one position every day. He's moved me from boundary to field to nickel so everyday I do field corner work and nickel work. So, just keeping in the loop with things, keeping me flexible, keeping me learning multiple positions at once, so I can be effective if something happens to anybody in the secondary, it won't be hard to teach a guy on the fly. You know, everybody pretty much knows all the positions, so it'll be easier."

ON THE RELATIONSHIP HE AND ADONIS ALEXANDER HAVE BUILT SINCE JOINING THE TEAM IN THE SPRING:

"As soon as we came in, we were in the film room trying to learn things. You know, we'll learn something in film one day and then we'll go home, talk about it and pop random questions at any given time and you have to answer them because you got to be able to think on the fly. So, we quiz each other so we both know we stay on top of it. We hold both each other accountable. Both of us want to be ready whenever our time is and that's our goal. Coming into the spring, we wanted to come in with the mentality to not waste any reps, not waste any years; come in, be effective automatically. That's what I feel like we've done and we just hold each other accountable to what goals we have set."