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April 13, 2007

Chock Full o’ Things

Filed under: Football,Practice — Chas @ 8:01 am

I’ll say this about Trib-Review sports writer/Pitt football beat guy Kevin Gorman’s blogging effort. He is definitely providing lots of extra content when he does the spring practice reports. Lots of various tidbits and stuff.

• A new twist to the secondary was that senior Lowell Robinson appears to have moved to cornerback for good and split second-team reps with Aaron Smith. Robinson made a nice play on a toss sweep to his side, when he spun off a block and tackled tailback Kevin Collier.

Robinson also worked on special teams as the kick return specialist (alongside Porter), but doesn’t appear to be a candidate to return punts. Those duties were handled by Aaron Berry, Smith, Porter and Ricky Gary.

• One of the players to have a strong, but subtle spring was sophomore Jovani Chappel. He’s playing second-team cornerback behind Kennard Cox, and could push Cox for the starting job this fall. When the first-team defense lined up in the nickel package, the hard-hitting Chappel was the extra defensive back.

I’m a little surprised to see Robinson shifted over to Corner. I would question his speed there — not to mention his coverage ability. He was an All-American JUCO Safety. Can he really stay with receivers without getting penalized or burned? I would guess they are just trying to find a place for him on the field. Safety seems to have some depth if Thatcher and Phillips are healthy and Fields stays out of the doghouse. Still, there is arguably good depth at corner as well.

Near the end of the post, he slips in — almost casually — that Shane Brooks is struggling with putting the ball on the ground.

Shane Brooks is fitting into the “ultra back” role nicely, especially when he hangs onto the football. If not for his fumbling, Brooks would be the backup tailback.

That’s a bit of a problem.

Final question. Anyone really that wrapped up in the whole scoring mechanisms for the Blue-Gold Game or did your eyes just kind of glaze over as well?





Off topic- there’s a great PG article today about the Chartiers Valley basketball coach being fired via a my-son-isn’t-getting-enough-playing-time vendetta:

link to pittsburghpostgazette.com

The paper tears this school board member a new one. Great stuff.

Comment by Dan35 04.13.07 @ 8:58 am

He lost me after the “you get 2 points for a 2 point conversion” part

Comment by Dan35 04.13.07 @ 9:02 am

Robinson is one of the fastest players on the team. Questioning his speed was probably not the best tidbit to throw in on a football article, since you have shown you have no idea about Pitt football. Stick to basketbal.

Comment by ben 04.15.07 @ 10:26 am

Ben,

Please look closer at what I wrote, \”…I would question his speed there.\”

How fast Robinson is, is not in question. He was a very good return man for Pitt last year as well. There is a difference, though, in the speed at the corner position. It\’s not merely running a fast 40. That was where the coverage issues, reaction, and response come into play.

Comment by Chas 04.15.07 @ 12:59 pm

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