Notes and Observations from Louisville's Seventh Open Fall Camp Practice

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Fall camp for the Louisville football program is coming up on the halfway point. The Cardinals are roughly a week-and-a-half into their preseason, with seven of their 15 practice sessions now complete.

Their seventh practice, which took place on Friday, was their final one of camp that was open to both the fans and media. Like we were for the first six open practices practices, Louisville Cardinals On SI was there for it all to watch the final open practice of fall ball.

Previous Open Practice Notebooks: Practice One, Practice Two, Practice Three, Practice Four,Practice Five, Practice Six

Below is our notebook of the more notable happenings that transpired during the morning:

With this being a Friday practice, and one that precedes a practice where they'll be scrimmaging, this was a very light practice. In fact, they didn't even wear shoulder pads, and even cut out about half an hour earlier than normal. There were a few team periods with noteworthy reps, but most of my notes in this notebook are depth chart related.
Quick injury note: Jamarice Wilder and Victor Cutler were dressed, but like most of fall camp, neither participated in any sessions and mainly worked with the trainers. Also, T.J. McWilliams suffered some sort of lower body injury midway through, but was able to walk off on his own power and even resume practicing later on.
Like every other sessions, it was heavy on the special teams work in the beginning. Carson Hilbert was practing his kickoffs prior to team warmups, and looked pretty good doing it. After warmups was punt return work, and then that parlayed into individuals.
Since I still couldn't get a good eye on the various position groups because of how practice is orientated, I spent the individuals period mainly watching the running backs again since the media was set to talk to Chris Barclay afterwards. Of course, Isaac Brown looked fantastic in their various drills agility and pad level drills, but it bares repeating just how good Duke Watson has looked throughout camp. I remember in the spring posing the possibility that both Brown and Watson could crack the 1,000-yard mark, and now I feel that it's entirely possible it could happen.
After the running backs participated in a walkthrough with the quarterbacks that worked on handoffs tosses, swing passes and dig routes, practice moved to a segmented 7-on-7 style drill that was essentially 3-on-3. These types of segments are designed to favor the offense, and this certainly was the case. Jaleel Skinner continued to showcase consistency and reliability, Davon Mitchell had a couple really good reps (including a one-handed snag), Chris Bell ran a nasty in route, while Antonio Meeks and Jaedon King both helped the quarterback stay in rhythm. The most noteworthy defensive rep was a pick from Antonio Watts, who continues to have a great fall camp.
After this was a true 7-on-7 segment, albeit it was a bit short. Isaac Brown has a great wheel route from Deuce Adams, but the defense stood out the most in this truncated period. D'Angelo Hutchinson grabbed an interception over Bell, Watts had what should have been a pick on a great route jump, while Stanquan Clark had a PBU.
Then the team held a walkthrough that practiced two-minute drill situations, and there were some noteworthy depth chart tidbits. The first team offensive line remained the same as the last couple practices: Makylan Pounders, Lance Robinson, Pete Nygra, Rasheed Miller and Mahamane Moussa. As for the second team? That consisted of: Tyler Folmar, Carter Guillaume, Sam Secrest, Jordan Church and Naeer Jackson. Deuce Adams got the initial second team QB reps, but Brady Allen got some as well. Antonio Meeks and TreyShun Hurry ran with the first team in a four-WR set, while Skinner got the bulk of the first team tight end reps. In fact, after Jacob Stewart and Dylan Mesman mixed in with the second team, this is when I noticed that Nate Kurisky was not at practice. Not sure what to make of that.
During the next individual period, all of the offensive skill position units ran extended ball security drills, and that was followed up by another special teams walkthrough session.
Practice ended with a redzone 7-on-7 session, and Louisville got good work from the offense. Miller Moss delivered a strike to Jaedon King on a post route, Harrison Atkins was able to maintain concentration to catch a ball on a bounce, T.J. McWilliams had a nice wheel route catch (although it would have been a likely PBU on a big hit from JoJo Evans had it been a live period), Mason Mims threw a pass to Caullin Lacy in the corner of the end zone after relying a bit to much on checkdowns early, Bell skied into the air to grab a ball from Moss in the endzone, and Antonio Meeks caught a ball through a little too much contact. The best defensive rep during this segment was an interception from Corey Gordon Jr. off of Brady Allen.

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