Senior Bowl Day Three – South practice report
January 28th, 2010 by Drew Smith
The FantasyCollegeBlitz crew arrived in Mobile in time to catch the Wednesday’s practices. Jeremy has written up his thoughts on what he saw from the North squad and I will share my thoughts on today’s South practice.
Of course, any talk about the South team has to start with Tim Tebow. There isn’t much to add that hasn’t already been said since I saw the same things that everyone has. His mechanics need a lot of work and after throwing some bad passes he became hesitant and then checks off. I don’t believe he is a lost cause at QB but he can’t be considered anything more than a project. However, the NFL has shown they aren’t afraid to draft a QB project with upside in the 2nd round. Tarvaris Jackson proves this.
Joe Webb (UAB) is making the transition from QB to WR and did a good job catching the routine passes but struggled with the more difficult ones. He impressed me with his physical play and used his body well to shield the defenders. Obviously he is going to be raw as a receiver but he it was how slow he looked that might be the thing that prevents an NFL to draft him.
Andre Roberts (The Citadel) was a player that I heard a lot of good things about from the earlier practices, which were confirmed strongly. He caught everything thrown his way, ran crisp routes and shows no intimidation going against bigger school players. I look forward to seeing if he can continue to stand out on Thursday.
Dexter McCluster (Ole Miss) is tiny standing at 5’8 and a mere 165lbs but was easily the most electrifying player in Mobile this year. It will be interesting to see how he will be used by the NFL team that drafts him since he is listed as a WR, but played RB in today’s practice much like he did much of his college career.
Shay Hodge (Ole Miss) started out a little slow and had me quickly criticizing him for some of his early route running, but finished the day strong with catching several passes in traffic. He handled the press coverage as good as any receiver today and overall looked good.
Ryan Upchurch (Alabama) and Stafon Johnson (USC) unfortunately didn’t do anything that impressed me.
Riley Cooper (Florida) was inconsistent throughout the day in all regards. Every time I would note him doing something good, he would then do the same poorly. I need to see another days practice to get a better opinion of him.
Andre Dixon (Miss St) is just a beast who should easily find a job in the NFL as a power-back. He impressed me with his route running and catching ability which will go a long way to giving him a chance at more than just a short-yardage guy. Interestingly enough, in an interview with Dixon after the practices, he compared his style to Andrian Peterson with regards to how he looks for contact oppose to waiting for it to come. I agree and Dixon is one of the players I think will be a very good value for the team that drafts him.
Jeremy Williams (Tulane) is a player I was a big fan of during his college career so I naturally hoped he would impress me. At times he did, but far too often would follow up a great play with a drop pass or a poor route. From the people I spoke with, it seems that Williams looked better during the Mon/Tues practices so I will be expecting more from him tomorrow.
Ben Tate (Auburn) seemed to disappear for most of the practice but did have a very nice bounce outside run towards the end of the practice. In the early drills he displayed nice catching ability which was a pleasant surprise; he was rarely used in the passing game at Auburn.
By design, I focused my attention to the offense skill players but at the same time none of the defensive players jumped out to me on the South team like Daryl Washington (TCU) and Sean Weatherspoon (Missouri) did from the North team. Ok, well let me take that back… Terrence Cody who weighed in at a mere 370lbs stood out. He over-powered every player he went against.
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