NORMAL, Ill. – The Illinois State football team had a busy day with its first set of two-a-day practices, starting with an early 9:00 a.m. session and finishing up with an additional practice at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, at Hancock Stadium.
Head coach Brock Spack and his fellow coaches strongly emphasized red zone offense throughout both team sessions today.
The morning practice's 7-on-7 drill was dominated by the offense, with most of the plays starting inside the 20-yard-line. Tre Roberson was on target, finishing 12-for-18 with five touchdowns, and Jake Kolbe was equally impressive, finishing 11-for-14 with three scores. Christian Gibbs and Anthony Warrum hauled in two touchdowns apiece, including both making nice grabs on 25-yard scores in the back of the end zone. For the defense, Reggie Spearman tallied an interception when he jumped an out route to snag the pick.
While the 7-on-7 action was completely one-sided, the 11-on-11 red zone period was much more balanced, with Roberson running in a touchdown from 10 yards out on a misdirection play and later connecting with Gibbs and Jon-Marc Anderson on touchdowns. But the defense got plenty of big plays back, highlighted by a leaping interception by DraShane Glass, a tackle-for-loss by David Kenney and a big hit from Alec Kocour to stop running back James Graham in his tracks.
"Two-a-days are always tough, but it's part of the process of getting better," Spack said. "We started a little slow tonight as a team and we had to change the tempo a little bit. We did a segment of two-minute drill right at the beginning of practice to get the tempo going. I thought the tempo was pretty good. I thought guys competed and got better and finished up pretty strong. All in all, not a bad day."
Red zone offense and defense also highlighted the evening session, but the coaching staff implemented plenty of two-minute drill action throughout the course of practice.
Following a brief blitz session, a 7-on-7 drill—once again in the red zone—commenced in which Roberson finished 9-for-14 with three touchdowns, including a 15-yard hook up with Tylor Petkovich, who has looked solid throughout training camp at the tight end position. Kolbe ended 8-for-14 with two touchdowns, connecting with Brannon Barry and Mitchell Brees for scores. Toward the end of the session, Soniel Estime made a nice play by cutting in front of Barry on a post route and snagging an interception before taking the ball up the sidelines with a host of blockers.Â
A live red zone period followed, in which the offense was stopped after three plays on the first drive—thanks in part to a batted ball at the line of scrimmage from David Perkins—and settled for a 38-yard field goal attempt from Sean Slattery that missed wide right. The offense quickly made up for it on their next shot, with Roberson finding Gibbs in the back of the end zone for a 15-yard touchdown.
Jalen Battle and Adam Conley each recovered fumbles, but Kolbe found John Nicholson in the end zone to highlight the next drive, and Zach Breen connected on a 37-yard conversion to end the session.
An intense two-minute drill wound down practice, with each side battling. Although Roberson connected with Gibbs for a first down near midfield, some nice defense from Davontae Harris and the rest of the secondary stopped the offense before they could get past the 50-yard line and threaten to score. On the last drive, the defense shined on three-consecutive plays, as Spearman picked up a sack, Dalton Keene batted down a ball at the line and Alejandro Rivera cut in front of Gibbs for an interception and sprinted up the right sideline to end the day.
The Redbirds return to the field Wednesday for the seventh day of camp at 3:00 p.m. To follow all of the Redbird football spring camp action and more ISU football news, log on to GoRedbirds.com and follow the program on Twitter at @RedbirdFB.
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