I’ll hold off on a full depth chart post as the Irish wrapped up their 6th practice of fall camp on Thursday and the 2nd of August to be viewed by the media. The players were in pads and didn’t hit, plus the second-to-last media viewing is coming up on Saturday anyway.
Here’s the best stuff following the latest workout.
Wimbush and Book took all of the live reps, leaving Jurkovec to drill work. To be expected, I suppose. We’ll likely see Jurkovec sometimes getting more reps and other times getting little work overall.
Avery Davis was the nominal backup running back (Dexter working lightly in the back end of the depth chart) while after the practice Kelly mentioned they are really beginning to like the Davis and Jafar Armstrong dual-backfield. At least on Thursday, this lineup saw Armstrong mostly in a receiving role and lining up in the slot quite often.
We should expect some flip-flopping at the wideout position. This time a trio of freshmen (Austin, Keys, Wilkins) were working as the backups behind Boykin-Finke-Claypool. Apparently the media was quite impressed with Keys and his tiny, yet explosive self.
Kelly alerted everyone that backup left tackle Aaron Banks suffered a hyper-extended elbow at Culver (the team was back on campus today) which moved true freshman Jarrett Patterson to the second-team. His classmate John Dirksen was still the backup at right tackle for the second media viewing. They also witnessed true freshman Luke Jones (3rd-team right guard) working some at center which is something to keep an eye on for the future.
The defense saw Julian Okwara starting at weak-side defensive end with Daelin Hayes down with the backups. I’d like to see more of this in the fall, to be honest. Nothing else was different within the front seven compared to the first practice with the exception of Owusu-Koramoah riding the bike on the sidelines (doesn’t appear serious). This moved true freshman Shayne Simon to backup at Rover, with Kelly mentioning afterward that he’s plenty physical but still catching up mentally.
The Kelly press conference and overall media coverage after Thursday’s workout was a big win for safety Nick Coleman who–after disappearing for most of the spring–is apparently right back in the starting battle! Today, he was working with the starters at free safety along side Alohi Gilman.
Justin Yoon kicking hype is back! He got a rare opportunity to impress the media with live work and did not disappoint. Kelly said he’s hammering the ball and let’s hope he has a sensational senior season full of numerous school records.
One note to add on the QB workload split – the media got to view the first two hours of practice. There was another 45 minutes afterwards that were closed, and it’s wntirely possible Jurkovec got team reps then.
Either way, though, he’s obviously running a distant third at the moment, as one would expect for a true freshman non-early enrollee.
“his tiny, yet explosive self”
-audible guffaw-