Spring practice Day 3 « Cliff Kirkpatrick

category: OSU Sports

Spring practice Day 3 234CommentsSpring+practice+Day+32008-04-04+19%3A39%3A54Cliff+Kirkpatrick

Perrnell Booth walks around the Oregon State football team’s spring practices looking pretty fly with a cane. However, he’ll trade the suave look for a healed ankle.

The senior DT needed surgery in February to repair damage done the week before the 2007 spring game. That’s right, a year ago.

Booth played through pain last season because he didn’t want to miss playing time. He also thought it was just a sprained ankle. So he held on to the offseason to get it fixed.

“I had to clean out cartilage and a bone spur,” Booth said. “The cane is just in case, to not put too much weight on it. I just got off crutches last week. It’s a step in the recovery process.”

Booth is sitting out spring practice, but is hanging out with the defensive lineman trying to keep up with what’s going on, and giving tips to the younger players.

He won’t be able to run for another month, but should be back to the regular training regimen in the summer and full speed in the fall.

“I won’t be participating in spring ball at all, but it will be good for our young guys we have to work in,” Booth said. “Once fall starts I’ll be ready to go. Me being out allows those tackles who need work to get a lot more work. That will be big positive to for our depth of our team.”

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OT Viliamu Nau has been replaced with Una Smiley on the spring roster. His return is yet to be determined. There was trouble with his paperwork from his junior college.

“We hope he comes back, but it won’t be this term,” coach Mike Riley said.

Smiley signed with the Beavers in 2007, but greyshirted after being shot in the leg several times while on a recruiting trip in New Mexico.

“After what he’s been through and the length we’ve waited for him I think it’s great to finally have him,” Riley said.

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RB Jeremy Francis is taking a lot of turns with the first string in drills, but when the team scrimmages happen Ryan McCants moves up. Both have stayed late for extra practice with the young players.

“I’m excited about Jeremy Francis,” Riley said. “We already have a good feeling about McCants. He continues to work hard and grow. He hasn’t played, yet, but I feel like he has. He looks good to me.”

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Talking about young players, when looking at the defense there are so many new guys out there I had to check out the roster at times. It looks just like last December’s bowl practice when the veterans hit the showers and left these guys out.

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Senior CB Brandon Hughes is one of 42 players and the watch list for the Lott Trophy. The award goes to the player who exhibits integrity, maturity, performance, academics tenacity and something call community.

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Here’s an update on the defensive depth chart out of Friday’s practice, since people were so worried that there was no D-line.

This is taken from when the offense and defense went against each othere. DEs Victor Butler and Slade, and CB Keenan Lewis did not take turns, so they are not listed.

+ DE: Carl Sommer, Kyle Bell, Evan Hull
+ DT: Mitchel Hunt, Sioeli Nau, Latu Moala
+ DT: Stephen Paea, Brennan Olander
+ DE: Kevin Frahm, Keith Robertson
+ OLB: Keaton Kristick, Dwight Roberson, Dennis Christopher
+ MLB:Bryant Cornell, Will Darkins, Casey Noack, Walker Vave
+ OLB: Keith Pankey, Isaiah Cook, Keo Camat
+ CB: Tim Clark, James Dockery, David Ross
+ CB: Brandon Hughes, Patrick Henderson, Brandon Hardin
+ S: Al Afalava, Austin Hall, Suaesi Tuimaunei, Cameron Collins,
+ S: Bryan Payton, Greg Laybourn, Lance Mitchell

— Cliff

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234CommentsSpring+practice+Day+32008-04-04+19%3A39%3A54Cliff+Kirkpatrick

GilesB says:

April 4, 2008 at 11:05 pm

I think “community” must be about child rearing. I heard somewhere that it takes a village.

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admin says:

April 5, 2008 at 12:26 pm

I’m guessing it’s community service, but that’s what was released.

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Cliff Kirkpatrick says:

April 6, 2008 at 8:12 am

Here’s a link to a Jeremy Perry story that ran in Sunday’s edition of he GT/DH: http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2008/04/06/sports/beaver_sports/football/top_story/1osu02_perry.txt

The most interesting part is that Perry said if he stayed healthy last season, he would have declared himself draft eligible this offseason. Since he got hurt, he was forced to come back for his senior year.

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Jean Van de merghel says:

April 6, 2008 at 10:26 am

Iwould like to know about what time friday 11 th practices start? I do realize it allways was an approxcimate time. I take along a group of young men to watch. We come from Fairview.

It has allways been a great time, hope to hear from you.

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Cliff Kirkpatrick says:

April 7, 2008 at 9:07 am

Practices are supposed to be 2:30-5 p.m., or abouts. Last Friday’s practice started an hour late.

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Lee Hower says:

April 7, 2008 at 10:11 am

Hey Cliff, I know that the basketball coach hire is big news, and I don’t want to step on your baseball-reporting toes, but I was at the series this past weekend at Berkeley. Lack of timely hitting was the killer in the first two games, especially the 13 LOB on Friday’s 5-2 loss that really wasted a good performance by Mike Stutes. I thought Mike pitched well, and more often than not, he threw a first strike. Sunday’s game was a great game for Jorge Reyes, which other baseball parents around me agreed that it was his best performance of the year, and he got the win in the 9-3 victory. In the second game, Cal’s freshman pitcher, Kevin Miller, came in in relief when OSU had tied the game at 3-3, and he just shut the Beavers down the rest of the way, winning 9-3. A very impressive performance for that freshman, who still has an ERA of 0.00.

Although I have only been to three Pac-10 ballparks, OSU, Stanford and Cal, I wonder if Cal’s is the worst of the entire conference. The place is pretty ancient, has nothing but aluminum bleachers, a tiny press box, only one men’s room with one urinal and one toilet stall, one women’s room with two stalls, all concessions are sold out of trailers, and has an occasionally malfunctioning scoreboard that looks like it is one step above manually inserted numbers. For a school with all of the tradition and resources of Cal, the baseball park is an embarassment. Plus, when they expanded Hass Arena for basketball, it took away all of the bleachers down along the left field line. I’ll bet the capacity of the place is less than 1500.

On a personal note, in all of the 50 years of going to baseball games, in the majors, minors, and college, I got a foul ball yesterday! It was a carom off of the side of Hass which sent it back into the crowd. Landed right at my feet. Ahh, with baseball, life is good.

Next up, the Arizona series at home! Go Beavs!

Lee Hower
Sacramento, CA

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