The Oregon State football team changed up the venue for their 14th practice of fall camp as the entered the confines of Reser Stadium.
It seemed like there was a little extra energy while playing in the stadium as pads were popping and players were giving the extra effort to impress coaches. Below are the most newsworthy notes from OSU’s first practice of fall camp from inside Reser.
Practice Nuggets
-Cornerbacks coach Cory Hall mentioned to me today that the cornerback race opposite of Xavier Crawford is between Jay Irvine and Isaiah Dunn. This is an interesting development as Shawn Wilson was considered to be one of the players who was going to compete for that spot.
-The Jake Luton-to-Noah Togiai connection is alive and well folks. After not talking about it for a day, we figured it was time to bring it back up as the first pass that I saw Luton throw was a strike to Togiai over-the-middle for a nice gain. It really seems that those two are growing a strong rapport just in time for the season.
-In direct contrast of yesterday’s practice, Ryan Nall received a ton of carries today. Yesterday, Thomas Tyner and Trevorris Johnson were the guys who got the majority of the reps. Today it was slightly different as all four running backs received carries. However, Nall and Artavis Pierce were the first two running backs to receive carries. Pierce wasn’t super impressive today, and several times struggled to break through the defensive line. Today was the second day where Johnson continued to look really really good. He showed his ability to be more than just a running back as he caught several RPO’s from Luton and Darell Garretson that he turned up field for several nice gains.-Speaking of the defensive line, they continue to prove that this is the year that they are going to break out. Or at least in practice. Today was the 2nd or 3rd day in a row where they d-line was able to get consistent pressure on the quarterback and force a hurried pass. In terms of rush defense, they are also getting better at being able to sniff out running plays and stop the ball carrier in the backfield.
