With class schedules being heavy on Mondays and a focus towards rejuvenation, the football team held a shirts and shorts practice this evening while continuing preparations for their season opener against UAB on Thursday.

Players took the field for about an hour, retiring shortly before sunset.

“We thought it would be good to dedicate the practice to the cerebral side,” said Coach Schnellenberger. “It has been a long camp and one that our legs have gotten weary. We are not going up there (UAB) with weary legs.”

The offense worked on snap count drills before moving into formation sets, and the defense focused primarily on Blazer personnel recognition, and assignments.

“We think we’ve prepared well, but we’ll know when we get there”, said defensive coordinator Kurt Van Valkenburgh. “We haven’t scaled down a whole lot, we’ve just packaged it up a little bit different so things hopefully relate better.”

Coach Schnellenberger spent some one-on-one time with SR LS Morgan Barnett towards the end of the session before blowing his infamous whistle to summon the team for final remarks.

Quick Hits:

“Polo has done a really good job in the pre-season, and Malik Eugene has jumped up in particular. Our defensive ends are doing well. Those guys have made a change from last year to this year.”

- Coach Van on players to watch

“We’re going to try and not invent a whole lot of new things. It may have a wrinkle in it, but it’s a wrinkle they’ve practiced.”

- Coach Van on the Owls’ defensive approach for 2010

The team will return to practice tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. on the Oxley fields.

Beautiful sunset at the Oxley tonight…

Coach Schnellenberger warms-up the team…

QB Graham Wilbert displays his receiving skills over at the track complex…initially got the call practice would be held there - as did I…they even brought the water…turns out everyone else was at the Oxley…so, packed up the gear and headed back…

"Our defensive ends are doing well. Those guys have made a change from last year to this year.”

Now THAT is music to my ears! We've got two really talented veteran DEs on the team this year and I've been waiting for them to come around. Lets get some sacks!!!