April 9, 2007
NORMAL, Ill. -
The date "April 9" never appeared on any of the Illinois State football spring schedules as a potential practice day, that is, until April 9. Head coach Denver Johnson rallied his troops together on Monday and the Redbirds worked out in full pads for the first time this spring on ISU's grass practice field for 24, five-minute periods.
"We were thrilled to come out on our field and on a pretty nice day. We had a lively practice," Johnson said. "We are not obviously razor sharp, but the kids are having fun and we are getting after one another. Things are moving in the right direction."
The focus throughout the practice was primarily on the ISU run game.
"At times, there were some really good looking things out there," Johnson said. "Rafael (Rice) looked good. Geno (Blow) looked good a time or two and Alan Abrams had a couple of nice runs. It also looked like (the offensive line) had people hatted-up pretty nice up front at times, but then we also let people loose."
During the 7-on-7 drill, redshirt freshman Preston Earl completed seven of his nine pass attempts, while Luke Drone was for 3-for-10, including two dropped balls, and Kevin Brockway finished 5-for-11, with two of his incompletions forced by Chris Garrett.
In the final four periods, the Redbirds held a team scrimmage. Blow bounced off a tackle late in the scrimmage and took the ball outside which would have probably resulted in an 80-yard touchdown run. Earl completed all four of his pass attempts and Drone was 3-for-5. Brockway completed one of his four passes.
Defensively, Jason Tate added a sack and a pass break up during the scrimmage. In addition, the Redbirds' top returning linebacker Kye Stewart saw some action from the middle linebacker position on Monday.
"Kye is a little bit of a wildcard. I think he can play any of the three (linebacker) positions and can play them well," Johnson said. "It gives us a chance to move him around a little bit to see different personnel in the other two positions. That is certainly not a move that we have made. It is just a luxury we have with Kye."
According to Johnson, the Redbirds will attempt to practice every day this week as long as the weather cooperates.
