#DayByDay Fall Camp Notebook: No. 10
This and That
The North Dakota football team had two of its better practices of fall camp on Tuesday as the squad went through another two-a-day at Memorial Stadium. After practicing in full pads during the morning, the team returned in half pads for its afternoon session.
The most important thing is both sessions were pleasing to head coach Bubba Schweigert.
"This was probably our best day as far as offense making some plays, defense making some plays, going back-and-forth a little bit," Schweigert said. "I really liked our enthusiasm the last four or so periods this morning. The guys were into it. Everybody was engaged.
"If we can practice like that - we are going to get better. That was good to see. It was not perfect by any means, but there was a lot of enthusiasm and some emotion showing that you want to be out here and get better."
Moving Closer To A Depth Chart
One of the themes of fall camp so far has been an "all jobs are open" approach by the coaching staff and that means there is no entitlement for veterans or newcomers alike. Eventually that will have to end as game preparations increase for the opener at San Jose State, but Coach Schweigert has been pleased with what his young coaching staff has accomplished thus far and is pleased with the open competition.
"I think it helps you because human nature is to get comfortable when you have a (guaranteed) spot," he said. "Our team is willing to learn and that's the biggerst thing. I think we have everybody pulling in the same direction.
"We rotated our units a little different the last couple of days and guys need to be able to handle that and respond to working with different guys. By the end of this week, we really need to get something set, so we know what the units are going to be."
Give-And-Take
As eluded to by Coach Schweigert in some of his comments, the enthusiasm and energy was high at both the morning and afternoon practices with both sides of the ball shining at times, then sharing the spotlight with the other side.
In the morning, sophomore Ryan Bartels marched his squad down in the final team session on an efficient drive that would have resulted in a field-goal attempt. Redshirt freshman Aeron Carr made a nice diving grab along the sidelines and junior Zach Adler picked up a big third-down conversion on the drive.
The session was not live, but the tag tempo was spirited enough to get both sidelines excited about the competition.
Down Two
The afternoon session ended with a two-minute drill where the offense was down by two points with 90 seconds to move the ball into field-goal range.
The defense came up with interceptions on the first two drives led by Jake Hanson and Joe Mollberg, respectively. Redshirt freshman Cole Reyes came down with the first interception that he would have easily taken back for a defensive score.
Freshman Josiah Montague then picked off Mollberg after he had moved his squad down to the defense's 40-yard line to stall that drive.
Bartels engineered the only drive that resulted in a field goal attempt, but freshman Reid Taubenheim missed wide right from 47 yards out.
Social Media
Check out UNDFootball on Instagram or follow @UNDFootball on Twitter to see a few pictures from the practices.
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