Tulane Defense Continues to Dominate, QB Depth Chart Still Not Certain
A cloudless morning greeted Tulane in its final week of spring football practice, Tuesday. Temperature, when everything got underway, was 70°. No breeze this time, a little bit on the humid side though. By the end of practice, temperatures were nearing the 80° mark.
Spotted on the Sidelines
Over a dozen possible high school recruits and their families roamed the shady East side of the stadium watching the Green Wave practice. Also in attendance in his practice jersey, last year's breakout freshman running back Jamauri McClure. He didn't take any snaps, but was in Yulman Stadium.
Hill Showing His Skills
In one-on-one drills, we got to see some impressive moves by LSU transfer wide out Destyn Hill. During one portion of the drill, players were to try to find the end on a run while two defenders were trying to get to the ball carrier. Only one person was blocking in front during this particular drill. Hill started on the end around and made a seamless cut back to the inside behind the block but in front of the other defender and was able to find his way to the end zone.
In a later drill, tight end. Gabe Lovorn, who has looked good in Spring drills, made a cut that someone his size should not be able to make, leaving the defender in the dust and getting a roar from his offensive teammates. As much as head coach Will Hall loves using his tight ends in the offensive scheme, you know that had to make him happy.
During team drills at the end of practice, the offensive line still seemed to be having difficulty opening any holes for Tulane running backs. In drills from the 20-yard line, runs up the middle and sweeps could not keep the linebackers at bay. Only fakes to the inside and bootleg sweeps by the quarterbacks seemed to be successful.
On SI Analysis
Still too early in our opinion to make a decision on who the starting quarterback will be in the fall. We continue to see positives and negatives for both Kaden Semonza and Zeon Chriss-Gremillion. Semonza can make decisions quickly, while Zeon still tends zone in on one receiver, but when Zeon finds a crack in the defensive front, he shows off elite running abilities.
True freshman quarterback Trace Johnson continues to impress, making quick decisions and not throwing the ball into over heavy coverage. He consistently checks down from receivers who aren't open. We'll be talking with him later.
Red shirt sophomore QB Dagan Bruno showed how well he knows to run the option from when he did so at John Curtis. Bruno did go back to pass a number of times, but he showed excellent running ability as he has all spring on designed option plays.
Lengthy Interviews
Today's interviews include Head coach Will Hall, offensive line coach Cody Kennedy, starting left topical Dom Steward, starting right tackle. Ryan Mickow, and true freshman quarterback Trace Johnson. You can see them all by clicking here. These interviews and more are available on our YouTube Channel.
Second to last practice of the Spring is set for Thursday morning. Of course, we'll have coverage of that at 4:00 p.m. Thursday. This Saturday, the culmination of spring football when Tulane holds its annual spring game in Yulman Stadium at 9:00 a.m. The format for the event will essentially be a glorified practice. Admission is free and open to the public. Saturday afternoon at 4:00 p.m., we'll have our final wrap up of the Spring.
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Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.