Utah Football: Tips When Reading Practice Reports

Now that we’ve reached day five of fall camp and we’re about to move to pads, I thought I’d offer up some tips when getting practice reports.

1. Don’t take what happens on any one day too seriously.  Fall Camp is a marathon, not a sprint.  Guys have good days and bad days.  I saw too many people say Wilson had a bad spring because he had a couple of bad balls early in one scrimmage and then that became the narrative.  Watch for trends.

2. Don’t worry about the offense until after the 2nd scrimmage.  Defense always dominates the first scrimmage because defense always comes together faster than offense.  The one concern is, if your offense dominates your defense in the first scrimmage, you have a bad defense.  The offense should be closer to being up to speed by the 2nd scrimmage and pissed because the defense humiliated them in the first one.

3.  Injuries happen, the real concerning thing is if they start to happen at one position.  Be aware of that.

4. Learn who to trust and not trust with practice reports.  Anything coming from the sports radio stations of Utah who are not KALL, don’t trust it.  If it comes from the Scout and Rivals guys or mi amigo over at Block U, it is reliable.  Be vigilant about what the reporters that the papers say.

The concern is what we’re looking like two weeks from now, not today.  So don’t melt down over any one day, even one like yesterday.