Spring Practice Begins

FOOTBALL

Spring practice kicked off on Monday to officially get things going for the 2010 LSU football team.  Here are a few tidbits to pass along that I've picked up from various places. 

Richard Murphy is working in a green no-contact jersey but was working with the first group at running back.  He was apparently showing no lingering signs of his knee injury. 

The first unit at offensive line on Monday was Joe Barksdale at left tackle, Josh Dworacyzk at left guard, PJ Lonergan at center, Will Blackwell at right guard, and Alex Hurst at right tackle.  I had assumed that Dworacyzk would move to tackle, but Hurst moved outside instead.  It's also interesting that Lonergan worked with the starters at center rather than T-Bob Hebert.  We'll have to see how that shakes out. 

Terrance Toliver, Reuben Randle, and Russell Shepard were working as the first three receivers.  No surprises there. 

On the defensive line, Lavar Edwards and Chancey Aghayere worked as the starters at defensive ends while Drake Nevis and Pep Levingston worked with the starters at defensive tackle.  Josh Downs sat out today with a thigh injury. 

Several sites reported that new defensive end Ken Adams looked very impressive. 

Mike Brockers worked with the second group at defensive tackle.  Judging from the pictures, Brockers looks more like a defensive end to me. 

At linebacker, the starters consisted of Kelvin Sheppard, Stefan Francois, and Ryan Baker.  Francois seems to have put on some good weight.  He looks more like a linebacker than a safety.  I'd even say that he looks like more of a linebacker than Harry Coleman did.  I suspect that he'll be a good fit at linebacker. 

In the secondary, Patrick Peterson and Morris Claiborne were the starters at cornerback as expected.  At safety, Brandon Taylor and Jai Eugene ran with the starters at safety.  Craig Loston was running with the second team at safety.  He'll be pushing the starters all spring.  Karnell Hatcher is out with an injury right now. 

That's it for Day 1.  We'll continue to keep an eye on the various position battles that are taking place throughout the spring.