Preliminary observations from AM Senior Bowl practice … With the players warming up for this afternoon’s Senior Bowl practice, here are a couple or three or more preliminary observations from this morning’s workout, although we note that the players were only in shells and there was no tackling per se.
- It didn’t appear as if Michael Penix threw the ball all that well on the day. Nothing egregous, but the precision just wasn’t there as a number of his passes were off-target.
- It was also a somewhat disappointing day for UCLA DE Laiatu Latu, arguably the highest rated player in Mobile this week. He was buried by Oregon State’s Taliese Fuaga early in the OL-DL one-on-one drills and didn’t show much in the team portion, although he did beat BYU’s Kingsley Saumataia on a nice inside spin move to wrap up the day. And that may have been the issue with Latu who up until then had really only tried to win with outside speed. It was also a quiet day for Oregon’s Brandon Dorlus, who lined up both inside and out, but didn’t make much of a splash at either, On the whole though it was a pretty good day for the defensive linemen with Marshawn Kneeland of Western Michigan, Baylor’s Gabe Hall, and Austin Booker also showing some pretty good quickness getting into the backfield.
- Speaking of Fuaga, on first blush he appeared to be the best offensive lineman in the morning session. He’s a big guy, but he plays low, gets good arm extension and has very quiet feet. Also on first blush it appeared that Oregon C/G and Illinois OG Isaiah Adams, the only Canadian on this year’s Senior Bowl roster, had solid mornings. On the other hand, Arizona’s Jordan Morgan had a bit of an up-and-down practice. He washed out DT Michael Hall, who otherwise was pretty solid, at least defending the run, but struggled at times especially reacting to counter moves. Utah OG Sataoa Laumea also had a tough time sustaining against quicker interior defenders.
- The Senior Bowl is rarely a particularly good venue for RBs to show their stuff, but at least in today’s practice in shells, Marshall’s Rasheen Ali and USC’s Marshawn Lloyd both showed off some nice speed and quickness to the hole, while Lloyd also made a couple of nice catches downfield in one-on-one wrap-up contest working against Notre Dame LB JD Bertrand. Meanwhile, New Hampshire’s Dylan Laube, one of the few FCS players in Mobile this week, did not look at all out of place, although he didn’t seem to get as many touches as the other backs.
- Nice day for Michigan WR Roman Wilson who showed some speed and quickness and caught the ball well, while it was an up-and-down day for North Carolina’s Tez Walker, who clearly has a second gear, but was a little slow off the snap and not that clean in his cuts.
- Toledo CB Quinyon Mitchell, one of the big risers in the 2024 draft class, did nothing to slow that mo with some sticky coverage that resulted in a couple of PBUs. Meanwhile, Cam Hart of Notre Dame had a nice pick when he undercut an underneath route, but did appear to have some problems staying with receivers on deeper routes.
