Tamy in Chicago:

So I hear you saying that our boy leshoure isn’t quite where we thought from watching the spring stuff. What do you think happened? Dufrene and Ford just put in more work over the summer? They realized they needed to step up their game after spring? Leshoure slacked off or it was just an aberration?

Probably the most disappointing thing about Camp Rantoul for me.  I wanted to see him build on his outstanding spring.  I wanted to see the same spring in his step, but all I saw was a kid who appeared uninspired.  As I mentioned before, he was doing up-downs after practice on Friday night because of the dropped balls (drop down, pushup, stand up, catch the ball, toss it to the assistant, drop down, pushup…)

And then in the scrimmage, the same thing.  In the short yardage drill they threw a ball to him in the flat… and he short-armed it.  I felt like a parent in the stands, knowing that his boy is headed to the scout team if he keeps dropping the ball.

Driving home, I settled on “maybe Mikel hasn’t been feeling well – like he got into some bad chicken fingers or something”.  Yeah, that’s it.  Chicken fingers.

Doug in Dougland:

You wrote a few times about Fayson getting unloaded on by Zook.  Hopefully it is constructive criticism and Fayson accepts it well.  Aside from the few blunders, how does he seem to be integrating with the offense?

On one of the first plays in the scrimmage, we lined up three wide.  Cumberland on one side, Benn in the slot with Fayson outside on the other.  I didn’t watch the ball at all that snap – I simply watched Benn and Fayson do their thing.  It was beautiful.  I think time slowed down for a bit.

I really think Fayson is the perfect yin for Benn’s yang. It won’t even be the third quarter of the missouri game before some message board somewhere has a nickname thread started (“How about Starsky and Clutch??”).  What Benn can do by running over people, Fayson can do by running around.  I’m already dreaming about the play where Benn runs an out from the slot (and draws the safety help), leaving Fayson one-on-one crossing towards the center.

So to your question, yes – I was very glad to see Zook making Jarred Fayson his pet project. His deflection that led to the INT at practice was just lazy hands.  And Zook is doing everything he can to make sure it doesn’t happen in a game. Excellent.

Craig B. from Parts Unknown:

It sounded like the punting game looked good at the scrimmage.  Is that true?  Was it good punts or just lots of roll or some combination of the two?  I was pleasantly shocked if the punting game came around.

Santella’s first punt – shown on the scrimmage video – was by far his worst.  As Loren Tate says on the video, he didn’t get it.  But the next few punts he definitely “got”.  They did a “backed up at our own 5″ drill for the offense, and the defense held.  So Santella had to punt from the endzone and kicked a boomer all the way to the other 41. Probably 65 yards in the air.  Also probably the best applause of the night.

Next punt he did the same thing – long, booming punt with great hang time.  And his form looked better, too.  You know how he used to look like he jumped forward to kick it, like he was tossing it out too far?  None of that in warmups or the game.

BUT, this was a scrimmage in Rantoul, not in the Horseshoe end zone at Ohio State.  He’s looked great in practice before, and then shanked a 21 yarder his first time out the next game.  I’m hoping the nerves are behind him and he can punt like he did on Saturday night.

And the best news of all – not one rugby punt.

IlliniFan in Orlando:

Do you think Juice has improved this year in the category of being able to scan the field and pick a receiver without locking on to them?  This has been one of his biggest weaknesses in the past I think and led to more than a couple INT’s.  He has improved each year so far in his career it seems so I’m hoping this is one thing he can do better this season.

I already answered a Juice question in Part I, but I wanted to take this one as well to address Juice’s eyes.

I keep going back to “in control”.  For the first time in my four years of watching Juice Williams throw a football, it appears that he knows what he’s doing.  Even in the missouri and Michigan blowouts where he threw for ridiculous yardage last year, he still looked tentative at times.  And when he was tentative, he would look for Arrelious and only Arrelious.

{standard “it’s practice – we need to see it in games” disclaimer inserted here}

In the two minute drill on Friday morning, I watched only Juice’s eyes.  The bad news was, he probably threw the ball to the first guy he looked at 65% of the time.  The good news is, he completed nearly every one of those passes.  It gave me confidence that when he did check down to his 2nd and 3rd options, it was because he didn’t want to force the ball to a covered option #1.  I don’t think we’ll call many plays where Juice intentionally looks off the safety center and right and then tosses left – that’s probably a little above his pay grade – but I have more confidence in Juice checking off his first receiver to throw to #2 than I did last year.

And there’s always tuck and run.  I’ve heard he’s pretty good at that.

FIRE RON GUENTHER from Joliet, IL

ok I am still worried about the safety play. is it Hardeman/ Garrett?  can we assume Flowers is down now in the pecking order?

I moved safety concern from DEFCON 2 back up to DEFCON 3 after my visit to camp.  Still a concern, but I feel a little better about it now.

We won’t know how Donsay truly feels until a Wes Kemp slant in the missouri game.  I am cautiously optimistic, but we just won’t know until then.  But the thing that stuck out to me was this: I think Donsay is the new Brit Miller.  He’s always talking, and I mean always talking. He was leading “lets-go-dee-fense” (clap clap clapclapclap) cheers on the sideline when the third string was out there. He was talking to Cordale Scott after he knocked away a pass on the sideline.  He was talking to his teammates, positioning them from something he read in the offensive set.  He was talking to himself, scolding his inner Donsay for being out of position.  I’m half expecting him to organize Man Day and grow a mustache.

I’m cautiously optimistic about Garrett Edwards as well (hey, it’s August).  Go watch the scrimmage video again, and look for Edwards’ hit at the 2:10 mark.  As one of the guys I was sitting with in Rantoul said, Garrett Edwards is the Iowa strong safety that we’ve hated for the last 15 years.  Sure, he’s not the most athletic.  And he’s not going to catch Ray Small running down the sideline.  But with a year under his belt, I’m expecting him to always be in position, take solid tackling angles, and generally be the solid strong safety we were missing last year.

There’s always Supo, too, who made some solid hits in the scrimmage. Sure, the majority of his tackles were 18 yards down field, but he seemed to be grasping the defense.  And he’s more athletic than Edwards.  I still say he sees backup duty this year and takes over for Hardeman at free safety next year, though.  Tossing a true sophomore out there would scare me a little bit this year.

Bo Flowers?  I don’t want to talk about Bo Flowers.  He’s become my own personal Bill Lemonnier, and I’m starting to hate myself for it.