Looky-Loo | by Jay

Fresh out of college I worked at a record company owned by Disney whose offices were on their Burbank studio lot. At lunch time, I would wander around the backstages and check out the movies being filmed. Watching a football team practice is a lot like watching a movie production: you can see some neat individual moments, but it's impossible to get a sense of the overall picture.

Yesterday I stopped by practice for about an hour while dropping some stuff off at ND for my brother-in-law, who's a sophomore to be. It's really hard to tell anything about how the team looks from standing thirty yards away behind a rope, but you can see who's playing with the first team, who's with the second team, etc. For a while, the #1 offense went against the #1 defense, but there were so many guys rotating in on defense: five, six, seven defensive backs, Mo Richardson at defensive end, Leitko in and out, all kinds of substitutions. The coaches are either still trying to figure out who can play, or we're going to see a lot more variety on D this year.

Occasionally a big play will happen that gets your attention. Yesterday, Ray Herring had an interception off of a tipped pass from Sharpley, and Jappy Oliver exploded with glee. "That's what happens when you get your hands up!". Darius broke off a scoring run around the left side and showboated a little as he crossed the goal line. Ndukwe came up and punched the ball out well after the whistle blew. Darius laughed and shook his head.

About the only thing I could determine with any degree of certainty: Sam Young is not shorter than he appears on TV.

But man, it was a beautiful day in South Bend (80ish, light breeze), and it's just really fun to see the players runnin' and hittin', coaches barkin', and everyone gettin' ready to play.