Practice #1 under our belts.  Beautiful morning in the Conejo Valley, decent breeze.  The first two practices, where the NCAA only allows teams to wear helmets and practice jerseys, are really about the players learning how to do things the way the coaches want it done- hustling in and out of drills, learning tempos, understanding our practice formats, etc.  There is usually some confusion and a lot of mistakes, but I can live with that if guys are flying around and competing, which is what I saw today.

Best of the day:  Several defensive transfers looked ready to play right now.  Bryant Chirinos (DL) drew comparisons to Jacob Calderon (2008 SCIAC Defensive POTY), and DBs Jerone Cox (CB) and Derrick Romo (S) will battle to start immediately.  Dontaie Ferguson (LB) is back from his early season injury in 2011 and put himself in a position to make a lot of plays this morning.

Needs work:  EVERYTHING!  More attention to the details.

Overall impressions- we're bigger and faster than we've ever been, but we didn't block, tackle or hit anybody!  Talented group of newcomers, a lot of potential with the freshmen.  Need to develop our rhythm on offense, and find the guys that warrant the reps on defense.  Very happy with the way this group conducts itself on campus, that's a compliment to them and their families, as well as our recruiting coaches.  I'd like to see more energy tomorrow on the field from the players, everyone seemed a little uptight this morning trying to impress the coaches.  Too much thinking, turn it loose and play Lu Ball!  The rest of today consists of film, meetings and more meetings. We'll coach 'em up and get after it again tomorrow.

Here's coach's interview post practice...