Notes and Observations from Louisville's Second Open Spring Practice

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Spring ball is in full swing for the Louisville football program. The Cardinals are already one week into their month-long spring practice, with three of their 15 sessions already in the books.

Their third practice, which took place on Saturday, was the second of six practices that were open to both the fans and media. Like we were for practice No. 1, Louisville Report was there for it all to watch the second open practice of spring ball.

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

For this practice, I spent a lot of it watching the offensive and defensive lines after paying most of my attention to the offensive skill positions and secondary during the first practice.
On the offensive line, the two players that stand out the most in terms of size, unsurprisingly, were Renato Brown and Madden Sanker. Those two look noticeably bigger on an O-line that already has hefty dudes.
I'll go ahead and preface this now by saying it's hard to gauge how good the offensive line will be in just the first week of practice. However, both Michael Gonzalez and UVA transfer John Paul Flores looked dominant in drills against the defensive line. One reserve that also stood out at times was Izaiah Reed.
A lot of time was spent getting players reps at different spots on the line. For instance, Sanker spent most of the practice at center.
Now for the defensive line. Jermayne Lole didn't take part in sled drills, but did so in everything else, and looked like his wrist injury isn't bothering him.
During 11-on-11's, both Lole and Jared Dawson had moments where they looked really disruptive up the middle and collapsed the pocket. Tawfiq Thomas also looked imposing during the period.
Two reserves that looked sharp in their agility drills were both R.J. Sorenson and Victoine Brown. One that struggled a bit was Penn State transfer Rodney McGraw, who routinely stayed up way too high.
Now for some general practice observations. It was fairly windy, but this is worth noting: there was a fair amount of drops by various wide receivers across the board, and the backup quarterbacks struggled at times with inaccurate intermediate/deep throws.
The only receiver who didn't seem to have this issue was Jamari Thrash, who used his speed to log yet another long touchdown catch up the sideline.
Jamari Johnson stood out in the first practice, but some of the other tight ends showed progress in terms of pass catching. Nate Kurisky got wide open deep down the middle early in 7-on-7s, and Francis Sherman is becoming more consistent on sideline catches.
Jack Plummer, again, was the best quarterback in practice by a country mile. With Jadon Thompson and Chris Bell still out due to injury, guys like Kevin Coleman Jr. and Jimmy Calloway are taking advantage of the extra reps to build a repertoire with Plummer. Calloway had the best catch that I saw, tip-toeing the sideline on a play-action.
Antonio Watts, a former safety who has made the transition to linebacker, looked good early in 7-on-7's. He came up to make a solid open field tackle in the flats, and also had a great pass breakup over the middle in tight coverage a couple plays later.
With the wind blowing so hard, it seemed like there were a lot more checkdowns to the running backs and tight ends than there was on day one. However, they all seems to take got angles to the sideline after the catch, so I'm not going to complain.
During 11-on-11's two defensive guys that stood out to me were cornerback Jarvis Brownlee Jr. and backup STAR Gilbert Frierson. Brownlee was aggressive and played tight coverage all morning, while Frierson had some reps with the first team and looked comfortable in the box. The two also combined for a fumble late in practice.
Maurice Turner is making sure he has a spot in the running back rotation. He looked extremely comfortable in red zone drills, using his jumps cuts and quick burst to navigate holes in the line on inside runs.
Something I noted all throughout the morning was that there was a concerning amount of false starts and offsides. Hopefully that does not turn into a consistant issue throughout the spring and later down the line.

(Photo of Jeff Brohm: Jeff Faughender - Courier Journal and USA Today Network / USA TODAY NETWORK)

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