Hokies Camp 2009, Volume 2 ...

Practice No. 1 is well under way and us hacks have been kicked out of the proceedings. We were only allowed to watch the first half of practice today, which was conducted in shorts and T-shirts and was fairly non-descript.

There was no hitting, obviously, and we didn’t get to watch any team drills. Only a handful of one-on-ones between receivers and defensive backs.

Still, you want observations, so I jotted down a few. Most are purely aesthetic, but here goes ...

* Coach Frank Beamer began the season’s first practice by huddling his players and telling them, among other things, this: “The big picture is one thing. But to get there takes steps.” After that, everyone hopped up and the team began chanting, “The journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step.” They said it three times and the Beamer barked, “Let’s get it!” And off they went to work.

* Freshman RB David Wilson already looks like a college back. He’s short, but he’s packed with muscle. Chiseled arms, bowling ball calves and clearly the best speed among all the Hokies’ backs – and probably the entire team.

* Sophomore RB Darren Evans appears to have put in plenty of offseason work. He’s chiseled, the epitome of a power back. He and fellow sophomore Josh Oglesby – the thickest of all the backs – are quite the pounding pair to compliment slashers Wilson and everybody’s favorite Ryan Williams (who is now sporting blonde dreadlocks).

* True freshman Logan Thomas, the surprise member of the QB group to start camp, is certainly an eye-catcher under center. He towers over Tech’s other QBs. Recruited as a TE/WR – although he played QB his last two years of high school – he certainly seems to have ability as a passer. He has a rocket arm and threw one nice, tight spiral deep that hit WR Brandon Dillard in stride. Later, he hooked up deep with Patrick Terry, who made an impressive leaping catch over my favorite name on the team – Germond Oatneal.  Thomas, in my brief exposure to him today, showed flashes. His throws were inconsistent and his footwork was fairly awkward compared to the other QBs. Clearly, though, he is a freakish athlete who will help the Hokies somewhere on the field – sometime very soon, I’d think.

* Back-up QB Ju-Ju Clayton appears to have made some nice strides in the weight room this summer. His body is not nearly as flabby as it was last fall. He has tightened up and he looked far more comfortable today than I’ve seen him in the past. His footwork is much more polished that a year ago. (In the no-kidding category, starter Tyrod Taylor was easily the best-looking passer today.)

* WR Jarrett Boykin made a very impressive leaping grab over CB Cris Hill. Boykin and Marcus Davis are insanely big and ripped for wide receivers. Davis, in particular, is very physically imposing. He also blew past starting CB Rashad Carmichael for a deep ball – thrown by Logan Thomas.

* WR Xavier Boyce is an enormous target and he was running very tight routes, flashing sure hands and moving quite well for such a large guy.

* In a very brief selection of one-on-ones, freshman DB Atone Exum ran well with receivers and was adept at breaking up passes mid-air.

That’s all I could scribble before getting the boot. Nothing earth-shattering, but I’m sure it gave you junkies a little fix. And now, a little more.

I’ve got a quick injury update and a few thoughts from RB coach Billy Hite for a story I have coming tomorrow on Tech’s loaded backfield. Enjoy. More later ...

TRAINER MIKE GOFORTH

ON THE PRE-CAMP INJURY UPDATE: "(RB) Kenny Lewis had another surgery on that Achilles to remove some old surgery and a little bit of infection, so we'll see how that progresses here in the next couple of weeks. Other than that, we’ve got (DT) Courtney Prince coming off the ACL last year, and really he’s the other one. We’re good to go.”

ON HOW MANY SURGERIES LEWIS HAS HAD SINCE BLOWING HIS ACHILLES IN THE WESTERN KENTUCKY GAME LAST SEASON: “That’s his fourth. It’s not really on the tendon. It’s on the skin around it. (Lewis had surgery immediately following the injury to repair the tendon, then again a month later when he slipped in the shower, then two surgeries since then to repair infection to the wound.)”

ON LEWIS’ CHANCES OF PLAYING THIS FALL: “According to Kenny, 100 percent. We don’t quite feel that strong, but we’re not ruling him out. Kenny’s a great guy, very strong, knows his body well. So I’ve got to trust him. We’ll work toward that. I don’t think we’ll see anything the first three or four games. But what we’ve done is set up a deal where every month we notify his dad, himself, our strength staff, the wound therapist, the two surgeons ... to see where we’re at with it.”

ON WHETHER LEWIS HAS BEEN ABLE TO DO ANY WORK, PHYSICALLY, WITH HIS LEG SINCE THE INJURY: “He has, but we haven’t been able to rehab him since the first surgery because he’s always had an open wound. So we’ve kind of had to treat him with kid gloves. But as soon as we can get the wound taken care of him ... he’s strong as an ox and he’ll be able to jump back from that pretty quickly.”

ON HOW LONG A ROAD LEWIS STILL HAS: “Right now, if we can get the wound clean, we’re looking at 2-3 months, minimum. Once the wound gets closed.” (It’s worth noting that Lewis has never redshirted, so that’s an option. However, that would make him a 26-year-old senior next season because of his minor league baseball career before coming to Tech.)

ON THE STATUS OF WR BRANDON DILLARD (BLOWN ACHILLES LAST SUMMER) AND SS DAVON MORGAN (BLOW KNEE LAST SEASON VS. NEBRASKA): “Dillard’s good to go. Morgan looks good.”

ON LAST YEAR’S RASH OF INJURIES: “Between the fall and the spring, we had 24 surgeries. Six of those were ACLs. That’s a record for us. That’s more of a testament to those guys and the strength and conditioning guys that they’re all ready (to play this year).”

RB COACH BILLY HITE

ON WHETHER, TALENT-WISE, THIS IS THE BEST GROUP OF TAILBACKS HE HAS EVER HAD AT TECH: “Best top to bottom. It really is. Before, I might’ve had two great ones and two good ones on the rise. But right now, to me, any of those four guys (Darren Evans, Josh Oglesby, Ryan Williams, David Wilson), you can shake them up in a bag, pull one out and put him in the game. Without a doubt. They’re special. David Wilson ran a 4.3 when he came in, benched 300, had the fastest 10-yard shuttle of all our freshmen. He’s going to be a special player.”

ON HOW NICE IT IS TO HAVE THREE GOOD BACKS ALREADY AND TO HAVE A GUY LIKE WILSON WALK ON CAMPUS READY TO PLAY: “It’s special. I told them all again yesterday: People have asked me how I’m going to keep them all happy, but I’m not the one who’s going to keep them happy. They are. Whoever’s playing the best will play. I want to play more than one back. We’ll have a few packages this year where we’ll get more than one tailback in the game at a time, too. There’s some things we are looking back to get the ball in all their arms and get them all on the field. We’re looking at some new things. We’ve talked about it for a while now. You’d like to get your best 11 on the field. That’s the thing we want to do.”

ON THE CHANGE THIS YEAR ON OFFENSE: “We had inexperience all over last year. Now we’ve got experienced receivers, an outstanding quarterback, good tight ends and a line that is outstanding, I think, and now we’ve got a great group of backs. So I feel very good about where we are as an offense right now. As long as we stay healthy.”

ON NOT HAVING MUCH OF A TWO-BACK ATTACK THE LAST THREE SEASONS AND HOW HAPPY HE IS TO HAVE THAT LUXURY (IT APPEARS) GOING INTO THIS SEASON: “Since Cyrus Lawrence got hurt when we used to run him 45 times a game (1981), and I felt like I cost him an NFL career, I’ve never wanted to play just one back. I’ve always wanted to have two backs in there, keeping somebody fresh. But last year, there was a talent drop-off between the first one and the second one and I had to make a decision. That’s not the problem right now. Not at all.”

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