An afternoon rain shower and temperatures in the mid-to-low 40s made it feel like anything but a spring practice on Thursday.
Nevertheless, the Memphis Tigers football team continued their spring practice sessions, and coach Justin Fuente said he was satisfied with his team’s performance, particularly the defense.
“The defense played really well today,” Fuente said after practice. “I like the way they communicated and flew around. They tried to make plays, and if something bad happened they continued to bounce back. Not a lot of bad things happened to them today. I just think as a group they played well today.”
Fuente said while the defense “won” today, you don't want the offense or defense to win every time.
“That’s the way spring goes,” Fuente said. “Somebody’s got to win right. So one side usually gets the best of the other on any given day. I think it’s important you have that balance. Anytime you have a team, and there is never any back and fourth that is not good.”
The Memphis defense is going through a major overhaul this season as they’ve lost eight starters from last season’s 10-3 team to graduation, in addition to three more backups also graduating.
“Handling adversity and handling success and those emotions are important things for a young group, an inexperience group to be able to handle,” Fuente said. “Trying to create as many of those in practice as possible is pretty important.”
Overall, Fuente said the defense just seem to enjoy being around each other.
“I think they genuinely enjoy each other’s company,” Fuente said. “We try to encourage that. We encourage the sidelines to be involved with what’s going on. I don’t want to be at practice and not hear anything.”
He said he is pleased with the performance of the special teams in spring practice so far.
“I think we’ve made big strides,” Fuente said. “In terms of installing our scheme, and getting guys work who were on scout team last year. Then teaching the scheme from the older guys and then the new guys again it’s important.”
For the upcoming scrimmage on Sunday, Fuente said they will work on a few areas such as situational football.
“We’ll do a little bit of goal line, which we haven’t done yet,” Fuente said. “We’ll do situational work in terms of the red zone, in terms of coming off of the goal line. Two minute and four minute drills. We’ll get into as many of those as we can.”
Fuente said they will keep an eye out for the position battles during the scrimmage.
“We’re still trying to develop some depth on the defensive line,” Fuente said. “We have some young linebackers that have been playing better. We have a whole host of new corners that are continuing to battle for playing time. We’ve got good position battles on the offensive line. We’ve shuffled some guys around in there. Pretty much across the board, we have a few guys that are pretty secure but for the most part it’s across the board (in terms of position battles).”
Before their scrimmage on Sunday, the Tigers will resume spring practice on Friday.
