First day of practice in the books

The opening day of the fall camp is complete and here are some of my impressions and notes.

First, I noticed that seniors Jesse Reising and Chris Stanley, who come into the season with 14 career tackles between them, practiced with the first team at linebacker and cornerback respectively and both looked very solid.

Eight offensive linemen who started at least two games last season are back but the starting unit on first consisted of tackles John Pedersen and Jeff Fell, guards Gabe Fernandez and Mike McInerney and center Jake Koury. Fell is the only one of the five who didn't see time as a starter in 2009 but it is at left guard where there figures to be the most competition with McInerney being pushed by converted tight end Alex Birks and Alex Golubiewski, who started six games last season.

Quarterback Henry Furman, running back Elijah Thomas and receivers Deon Randall and Jackson Ligouri were among the freshmen who stood out in the 7 on 7 and 11 and 11 drills. Furman threw a sweet 40-yard pass to Chris Smith and then on the next play, connection on a long sideline out - considered to be the toughest throw to make for a quarterback. Ligouri made a sweet over the shoulder catch of a deep ball thrown by Dez Duron.

Although there were no pads and supposedly no contact, there were a few minor collisions. Tempers flared when Reising gave fullback Shane Bannon a hard two-handed push as Bannon neared the sideline. Reising and Bannon rolled around for about 10-15 seconds but it wasn't much of a flare up.

The biggest news could be that Southington's Matt Kelleher opted not to take advantage of a fifth year of eligibility because his troublesome surgically-repaired knee was causing him discomfort. Austin Pulsipher will now become the long snapper. In previous entries I mentioned that receiver Chris Morris and fullback Josh Kozel would not be returning and that defensive lineman Pat Moran and receiver Peter Balsam would be taking this season off but were both planning to return as seniors for 2011 season. I can now report that defensive back Bedford Booth and receiver Lars Knudsen are no longer with the team. Offensive lineman David Bollweg also
stopped playing but he will be a student manager.

"Like Coach (Williams) said (when he addressed the team at the end of practice), we are light years ahead of where we were last year," senior defensive end and captain Tom McCarthy said. "Guys are flying around, we are lot more comfortable with the system, a lot more guys with experience and young guys are flying around too."