practice comments....

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TJames

The JSW Level
i was out at the scirmmage on saturday morning and then went over and watched about the last hour or so of monday's workout.

my immediate comments:

ok, i like schmidtke. there. i said it. lol

he has a great arm and seems to have an ability to stick the ball in there. he throws a nice, tight spiral and the ball appears to get to the receivers in a hurry. but saying all that, i want to wait and see what he does in a real game against a real opponent though.

a lot of high school quarterbacks with a good arm are used to throwing it past defenders. i want to see what happens when he tries to force the ball into tight coverage against another team with veteran defensive backs. i want to see his judgement as he reads his progressions.

that's what made jeff miller so good when he was at isu. he wasn't blessed with a gun for an arm, but he made good, smart decisions with the ball. he took his time and found the right receivers to go to at the right time.

john sahm may have had the best arm of any quarterback to have played at isu in awhile and it took him a little time to realize that he couldn't just zip the ball past defenders all the time.

but, yeah, i like what i have seen of schmidtke so far.

i like several of the younger defensive players -- roberts, archie, easterly, cook. even darrell ricker, who had a nice interception on monday and took it to the house. ricker is a wide body for a linebacker, but he made a nice play on the ball.

tight end josh jones made a great one-handed catch for a touchdown in the scrimmage on saturday. but he had a tough day on monday, dropping a few passes. still, i think the coaching staff did a smart thing in the spring when they moved him from linebacker to tight end. he seems to be a tough, hard-nosed kid. i like him.

they have moved alex jones, the freshman from centerville, indiana, from safety to tight end. the coaching staff wants to take advantage of his size, speed and athletic ability.

i think isu has a couple of pretty good placekickers. corey vanadore and freshman chris mabrey showed some leg strength and some moxie on monday during a drill when the rest of the team runs sprints, the field goal units runs onto the field with an imaginary clock running down and sets up for a kick. both kickers split the uprights despite the pressure situation.

speaking of pressure situations, i like the way the coaching staff breaks down the practices. they are big into situational workouts. short-yardage, goal-line, two-minute, third-and-long. teaching the players to think and not just react. how to act in pressure situations. i really like, especially with a team filled with as many young players as isu currently has.

well, that's my comments for today.
 

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Tom, Sydcamore, and others who post their practice thoughts - THANK YOU! Those of us who are interested in Sycamore football, yet live out of town, really appreciate you keeping us apprised of what's going on with Miles & Co. Please keep it up!
 
Thoughts from Saureday's scrimmage. I like Schimdke a lot. I believe he gives us the best chance of winning. He has a great arm and will only get better. Johnson and Selinger also threw the ball well. Does anyone know why Dowdell was taken out of the rotation? I thought Taylor Johnson ran the ball hard. Gates, Bown and Lough appear solid. I really like the receiving corp. with Patrick and Grey showing speed and Blue as a big athletic target. Kramer is elusive and may be an effective punt returner. The O-line struggled with Duke impressing. I love our linebackers and appear to be our strength. Archie is a monster and Cook plus others looking very good. Roberts adds the secondary with his athletism. Promising freshman everwhere. The soph. PK was accurate with good distance. The punter struggled on this day. Coach Miles and staff ran an efficient, enthusiastic practice. It was a very impressive showing. The improvement in a week's time was substantial. The future is nothing but bright.
 
troiani

Is there a kicker from THN or THS named Troiani trying to walk on or is he still in high school?
 
walkons

from what i understand, there will be few walkons -- other than the invited walkons -- on the roster this year. of course, that may change or there may be specialized cases.

as for a new kicker, i havent heard anything of that sort.
 
My thoughts

I was at the scrimmage Saturday and I agree with what everyone is saying. I thought Archie was the best player on the field. Dowdell looked horrible. I would like to see him move to receiver. Seliger and Johnson looked good but Schmidtke looked really good. Also, Jordan Bright, Reece Craig, and the #89(a FR. receiver) impressed me as well.

We are still in need of OL, DL, and TE's. I believe that Kye Butler, a talented young TE, is/was still hurt for the scrimmage and they moved the TE from Columbus North to LT. The future does look bright.

Neither THN or THS had a kicker by that name last year. THN's kicker was Lentz, South was Buske and Kraemer punted.
 

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So now that alot of you have had an opportunity to see exactly what are program has to offer talent wise what are your predictions record wise for this upcoming season?

Also as a former Linebacker i love to hear thate we have some new talent at that position

would you consider new and imporved core of LB's to be larger in size or quicker from sideline to sideline or both & for Archie all you have to do is watch his highlight film to know that he and julian easterly will be future all americans as well as Evan Brochers from The colrein high school

Last but not least where have Jayden Everret, Donye Mclesky, Q Scott, and Darius
Middlebrook been
 
Very impressed this past weekend. The future looks bright. Schimdkte is gonna be real good before it's all said and done. Doesn't have a real strong arm, but throws a real nice ball and is very accurate. Suppose to be a very smart player too. Needs to get bigger though. Dowdell looked horrible, and is probably out of the Qb rotation. Has a very poor attitude and gets down on himself alot from what I hear. I don't see the coaches putting up with his antics. Still not for sure why he has to sit out the first 2 games though.

Move him to WR or sumtin even though Wr seems set and deep for the future. Even if he is moved to Wr, there are still Wr's that are better. 85 and 89 are the 2 frosh Wr's that seem to be in the top 4 Wr with the two upper classman. Blue is tall, very athletic and seems very polished. White looks very athletic and fast. ahha Blue and White that's the team colors. Qb and Wr look very bright for these next four years.

Good idea moving Jones to TE. I was sceptical with him as a Db, but TE seems to be a very good fit.

Johnson is a beast. Big, bruising back.

LB's will be a strong suit. Archie is a steal and beast. Roberts looks good as a Rover or Apache. (DB/LB hybrid position)


O-line????? Need to continue to improve. I'm still gonna say this is the weakest part of the team.

Overall, the future looks bright. These freshman can play and are not your typical player's Indiana St. usually gets. Could be a long year, but Indiana states time is comming!!!

What's everyone's thoughts on who will be the starting Skill position players???
Other than Qb, we know who that will be.
 
dowdell....

is still in the quarterback rotation. i watched him at monday's afternoon practice. he is running with the first-team offense. dowdell and schmidtke split time with the first team offense and schmidtke also works with the second group as well.

dowdell is up and down in terms of plays. he throws better off the move than he does when he is set in the pocket. his passes are sometimes hard to catch because he throws the ball with the point down. and his decision making needs some work in terms of who to throw the ball to in his progressions.

he is hot and cold. he needs to start developing some consistency, but he had virtually no individual coaching while in high school from what i have heard. so he is very, very, very raw. his mechanics are not great, but better than what they were last year. he is a project.

he came out during saturday's scrimmage and they put ice of the elbow of his throwing arm. so i assume he had a sore arm.

even through dowdell has his detractors, the coaching staff seems to giving him a chance and are working with him. i still think he will play some at quarterback this season.
 
113TTN03 said:
So now that alot of you have had an opportunity to see exactly what are program has to offer talent wise what are your predictions record wise for this upcoming season?

Also as a former Linebacker i love to hear thate we have some new talent at that position

would you consider new and imporved core of LB's to be larger in size or quicker from sideline to sideline or both & for Archie all you have to do is watch his highlight film to know that he and julian easterly will be future all americans as well as Evan Brochers from The colrein high school

Last but not least where have Jayden Everret, Donye Mclesky, Q Scott, and Darius
Middlebrook been
Click to expand...

113TTN03,

Thank you for reminding us about Jayden, Donye, Q, and Darius. I think we are all so excited about the young kids that we forget that we do have some very talented upperclassmen.

Jayden has looked very good and is absolutely the heart and soul of the defensive backfield. Donye has looked very good as well. I believe that Q has been battling some injuries. Darius Middlebrooks may be the hardest hitting player on the team.

While I'm at it............. I would like to acknowledge some other upperclassmen that have been impressive. DB Russell Dedeaux looks good and quick (and a little bit like Bob Sanders, lol). Kyle "Money" Monroe has also had a solid camp and will play a big role this year.

I believe that Jr. DE Daniel Millington and RS FR DT Ben Geffert will be the heart and soul of the D-Line. These are two very talented kids. Millington is going into his 3rd year as a significant player on the D-Line. Geffert is coming off of an injury that sidelined him all last year. I actually think that Geffert would have been our best DT last year as a true freshman. Millington and Geffert will be accompanied by DE Kevin Wilson and DT John Goodrich. The young kids will add some much needed depth to the DLine this year. Most notably, SO DE Brandon Pence, FR DT Nate Williams, FR DT Lawrence Young, and FR DE Jordan Bright.

Many of us blame our past defensive problems on our D-Line. Yes, our D-Line has struggled. However, I believe there are two main reasons our D-Line struggled.
1.) if any of you attended any games last year you noticed that we basically had 7 guys in the D-Line rotation (4 of which could really play, in my opinion). The starting D-Line did not get many plays off because of "lack of depth".

2.) Our offense and offensive play calling was putrid. The running game was terrible (this could be the result of us not using FBs or TEs and running everything from the shotgun). I've never coached football, but I did play. One of the fundamentals of football that I learned is that FBs and TEs serve as extra blockers for your running game. I also learned that putting the QB under-center and alowing the RB to take a few running steps to build momentum before he gets the ball also helps in the running game. OK, OK, I will get off my soapbox. My point is, we rarely ran any time of the clock on offense. The defense was often on the field for 75% of the game. I don't care how deep your bench is, your guys will be tired when you ask them to play this much. Miles plans to RUN the ball. THANK YOU Coach Miles! We love you for this!

Ok, back on the soapbox of what was the "Pre-Miles Era". There were many times last year that our defense would come up with a big stop or cause a turnover. I would say 80% of the time that one of those occured, our offense either turned the ball over or went 3 and out.

On a positive note.......... It's a new year............ It's a new Coaching Staff........... It's new schemes........... It's half of a new roster. I'm excited!

March On Sycamores! We will be there to support you!
 
Last edited:
S.W.In99 said:
Move him to WR or sumtin even though Wr seems set and deep for the future. Even if he is moved to Wr, there are still Wr's that are better. 85 and 89 are the 2 frosh Wr's that seem to be in the top 4 Wr with the two upper classman. Blue is tall, very athletic and seems very polished. White looks very athletic and fast. ahha Blue and White that's the team colors. Qb and Wr look very bright for these next four years.

Overall, the future looks bright. These freshman can play and are not your typical player's Indiana St. usually gets. Could be a long year, but Indiana states time is comming!!!

What's everyone's thoughts on who will be the starting Skill position players???
Other than Qb, we know who that will be.
Click to expand...

S.W.,

I actually believe that 89 is Jeremy Gray, an upperclassmen. He does have some ability though.

I would actually disagree with what you say about the WR position. I think this is a position that needs some imporevement. In my opinion, we are not very deep at this position. That being said, WR Ryan Patrick is probably the MVP of the team. I think Jeremy Gray looks pretty good. Betoffe looks decent as well. Freshmen Koby Kraemer and Jared Blue look good as well. However, I do not see anybody other than Ryan Patrick being safe in terms of a starting spot. Broc Miller should also see some time at this position. You may also see Dowdell as the WR position.

Keep in mind, the receivers and the QBs do not have much experience throwing to each other.
 

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roster

According to gosycamores.com, 89 is Freshman Nate White and Gray is 21. I didn't see Broc Miller play anything but special teams. I was impressed with Lough, Johnson and Morang as well Sycamorefanatic1. LB might end up as a strength as Archie and Cook are impressive. Cook is just built like a LB. I think this recruiting class has set us up for the next 4 yrs. Now it is about adding depth, especially along the lines. I heard the 2 lineman that got hurt are pretty good players so that will help with depth in the future.

Anybody know if Kye Butler is hurt or just not performing? He did noy play at all Saturday so I'm thinking injury.
 
quitters...

Two Wr's quit the team very recently. Betofe quit for some reason, and so did another player. Most have thought they weren't going to play much.
I like the Dowdell move to Wr more now. I don't believe he would be in the top 4 though, but he would add needed depth. Even though he is practing with the 1st team, the job's Schimdtkes to lose.
 
Anyone at yesterday's or today's practice that could give us an update? The excitement is growing!!!
 

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Unfortunately, I don't think I will be able to make it to tomorrow's scrimmage.

I was at today's practice and the only thing I can say is that there appears to be 3 kickers competing for the position.
 
wednesday's afternoon practice.....

i got there late due to my work covering the colts, but the defense looked good and fired up.

of course, on the reverse side, you could say that the quarterbacks had a tough day because they were throwing interceptions...lol....

and i dont know what happened to the two kickers from monday's practice to wednesday afternoon...but venadore and mawbrey couldn't hit the broad side of a door with the way they were kicking....they looked like mike vanderjagt in the playoff loss to pittsburgh....lol...

earlier in the week, both of those guys appeared to be kicking pretty good...but i was told that they both have been struggling this week.

the new kid is a walkon...dont know his name...he was a soccer player in high school from what i was told....he appeared to be a little nervous....i guess he had 3-4 kicks during the morning practice and then they gave him more work in the afternoon to see how he would handle the pressure.

i do know one thing...something is building out there....how long its going to take to turn things around is anybody's guess....and while don't want to build people's hopes up....we've all been burned in the past....things look decidedly better out there....

i like the way they run their practices....i know i have said that before....the enthusiasm is up...some of the older kids have had a tough time adjusting to the new coaching styles....a lot more yelling.....running the Memorial Stadium steps for various transgressions....when raetz was the head coach, we used to call it tough love....but if they just hang with it, they have a chance to be successful.
 
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