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University of Minnesota Athletics
Camp Blog: Monday Evening Update
8/17/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
GopherSports.com is providing a daily blog from the beginning of fall camp until the week of the season-opener at Syracuse, set for Sept. 5. Check back here often for updates from throughout preseason camp. Associate Athletic Communications Director Andy Seeley will be penning most of these blogs. If you would like to ask a question about preseason camp, have a request for something you'd like to see in the blog or just a comment on the blog, feel free to send Andy an e-mail at aseeley@umn.edu.
You can follow us on Twitter, as well @GoldenGopherFB. We'll also be uploading video content to our YouTube Channel.
8:30 p.m. - Update
The Golden Gophers worked through a two-hour practice at TCF Bank Stadium late Monday afternoon and into the early evening. The Gophers were in spider pads for the workout, after a physical morning session earlier in the day.
The squad did a lot of scrimmaging or team work, although they obviously weren't tackling or going full contact in spider pads. Near the end of the afternoon practice, a good deal of time was spent working on end-of-game situations.
As mentioned earlier, Minnesota quarterback Adam Weber was named to the Manning Award Watch List today. Weber was happy to be recognized, but said it is all about the team for him right now.
"That's nice. I didn't know that," Weber said when I informed him of his inclusion on the list. "That individual recognition is nice. It's great to be mentioned with those big names. You can use it as some motivation to keep working hard. I know Eric (Decker) has been getting a lot of attention, too. But for us right now, we just need to be focused on the team and getting better."
Weber was also named to the O'Brien Watch List earlier this month.
Tomorrow's practice is slated for late afternoon/early evening at the Gibson-Nagurski Complex. The guys are scheduled to work out in shells.
-Andy Seeley
The Golden Gopher football team got things going early Monday morning with the first of a two practice sessions today. There are six two-a-day’s on Minnesota’s camp schedule and today is the second of those six.
This morning was physical, loud, boisterous and a few sparks even flew between the offense and defense. But that’s to be expected during the dog days of preseason camp. Despite a couple skirmishes, head coach Tim Brewster was happy with what the Gophers accomplished on the field Monday morning.
“We had a very spirited practice this morning,” Brewster said. “There was tremendous competition on the field. There were some sparks flying, but it was good. Today was a very important practice for us from a physical standpoint. We had a lot of live scrimmage situations, live goal-line situations and I was very pleased.”
Defensive tackle and co-captain Eric Small agreed that it was a good practice.
“We got full pads on today, so it brings out the best in all of us,” Small said. “It allows us to actually hit. We actually went full-go, tackle, which is nice to get that in during practice. That just heats up the competition between the offense and defense.”
Click the video below to see more comments from Coach Brewster and Small following Monday’s morning practice.
I had a staff meeting this morning and I didn’t get to see much practice. So, let’s empty out the mailbag just a little bit today.
Our first question comes from Tom, who hails from Parts Unknown. Tom would like to know what the schedule is like for the players during two-a-days. We asked Eric Small to go ahead and answer this question in the video below.
John in Minneapolis wants to know which youngsters (freshmen and red-shirt freshmen) who will contribute this fall. Coach Brewster addressed this question the other day after practice. He said he believes it is the skill-position players who have the best chance to contribute early on most college football teams. He believes that the offensive and defensive linemen need a bit of time in a collegiate weight room to mature before they are generally ready to contribute to a Big Ten football team.
We’ve gotten a lot of votes and opinions in regard to my unofficial nickname discussion for TCF Bank Stadium. If you’d like to vote, please send me an email and let me know if you prefer The Bank, The Vault or another nickname and why. I’m interested to hear any other ideas people may have. I’ll compile votes through the weekend and we’ll give the results and some of the more interesting comments in a blog entry early next week.
Gotta head over to The Bank/The Vault for the afternoon practice. We’ll have a brief update to this blog entry following this afternoon’s workout.
-Andy Seeley
