The 25 minutes of Tuesday’s practice open to the media started with field-goal attempts before the offense and defense split to their respective fields.

As a whole, the defense started with a drill in which two defenders started by lying on their backs on the ground. When a whistle blew, the defenders rolled over, popped up and went after the ball carrier — a fellow defender, approximately 10-15 yards away, who did his best to elude the tackles.

On one play, safety Naesean Howard — who recently returned from a suspension for violating training camp rules — escaped from defensive tackles Ryan Sloan and Isaiah Johnson by taking the ball around to the left sideline. After the drill, the defense split into positional groups.

The linemen started by pairing with one another at the goal line. One would start in the down position, and on defensive line coach Tim Daoust’s call, explode out and push the other lineman’s hands up, driving him back 5 yards.

“Hands above your eyes!” Daoust told them.

Daoust then instructed his players through a drill (seen below) in which four linemen got down on all fours and exploded up to hit the sled when Daoust pulled the ball for the snap.

“Reload it! We’re not being physical,” Daoust said, telling his players to take another shot at the sled.

A variation of the drill (seen below) involved two linemen squaring up opposite the sled, then coming out of their three-point stance and pushing the sled upward.

Afterward, Daoust split the group into tackles and ends. He took the tackles over to a chute while defensive graduate assistant Michael Ghobrial worked on dropping into coverage with the ends and throwing passes their way.

Senior defensive end Robert Welsh picked off one throw and took off toward the end zone extending the ball over the goal line. He threw the ball back to Ghobrial and extended his arms straight outward like airplane wings as he jogged back to the end of the line.

As the line practiced on the near side of the field, the defensive backs worked on deflecting passes from behind the wide receiver and the linebackers did tackling drills with a dummy.

Published on August 19, 2014 at 6:08 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb