University of Richmond Athletics
Spider Football Practice Report No. 3
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. – The University of Richmond Spiders football team continued training camp on Wednesday at Robins Stadium.
The team, wearing shoulder pads for the first time, practiced in the morning on Wednesday on a warm, clear day in Richmond for two hours.
The Spiders focused on continuing to implement 1st and 2nd down offense and defense, while continuing to hammer home base fundamentals and techniques for the third-straight day.
In the early team-teach section of practice, the Spiders worked on specials teams, focusing on punting. Sophomore David Broadus and senior Joe Gulli, Jr. took all the reps as punter. While Broadus had some nice kicks, Gulli stood out, booming some great looking punts.
During 11-on-11 drills at the end of practice, the first-team offense looked sharp. Preseason All-American WR Ben Edwards continued to look in form, taking a wildcat handoff 60 yards for a touchdown. Edwards later caught a 20-yard pass from QB Michael Strauss.
TE Sam Roller had a nice, 35-yard reception on a good pass from Strauss, while sophomore RB Jacobi Green reeled off a 25-yard run down the right side.
On defense, junior DB Justin Grant continued his strong play early in camp, coming up with three pass breakups working alongside fellow safety Reggie Barnette with the first-team defense.
The Richmond Spiders will back at Robins Stadium on Thursday, with practice scheduled for 9:45 a.m.
Post-Practice Quotes
"Today was our first go with shoulder pads on and things always change a little bit. There was a little bit more physicality out here today. I thought they came to practice hard, but I still didn't think that we had the level of consistency that I would like to see us have out here. We are trying to get a lot of looks here on a lot of our freshmen and rookie players. And we are still in much of an evaluation and developmental phase. We are trying to teach these players on what we want, evaluate them and make some position adjustments.”
--Head Coach Danny Rocco
“It felt great to get the shoulder pads on today, especially since we’ve been waiting to hit each other for so long. Football isn’t right without the pads. I thought today went really well, we were physical but there is still a long way to go.”
--WR Ben Edwards
“We definitely knew it was going to be more physical today with the shoulder pads on. We wanted to come out here, fly around, be intense but also keep each other safe and healthy.”
--DB Reggie Barnette