Image by Hilary Scheinukvia of Lsusports.net. See More images from the Open Practice HERE

Ed.- Thanks Andrew!

I’ve got to admit, when I found out that LSU was opening up a spring practice to the students, I was a little skeptical. I knew it’d be an interesting experience, but at the end of the day I just assumed it was a chance for the Tiger Athletic Foundation to convince a bunch of 18 to 22 year olds to respond to all those email requests for donations.

Once the practice started, though, I was sold.

This was not a publicity stunt, nor was it an attempt to pry money out of anyone’s hands. This legitimately seemed like an organization reaching out to its fans to say "thank you." The team and the coaching staff were very gracious to the students and seemed pretty happy that so many of us showed up (Michael Bonnette estimated that there were over 400, I would have guessed the figure was a bit lower). The team paid its employees to stand across the field and make sure nobody was walking on to the field or interacting with the players. My point? The athletic department spent money on this event. It was a very gracious effort on their part to reward the fans.

What struck me about the practice itself was the simplicity of what the team was doing. I hadn't been around any formal football practice since my junior year of high school, when I played offensive line. Immediately I started comparing my own experiences to what was going on with the drills I was seeing. Structurally, it all seemed familiar: each unit went through some individual drills to start things off. The lineman had their shoving contests, the quarterbacks worked on their form as they threw short passes to receivers and running backs, and the kickers and punters went to work on a separate part of the field where stray kicks wouldn't interfere with anyone. Gradually, the units came together and ran some simple but genuine plays. The focus was on some pretty basic stuff: play action passes, screen passes, runs up the middle, etc. Fans who hoped to see the early stages of the next River Left or watch Drew Alleman run into the end zone on a fake field goal or two would have left disappointed. None of the unique exercises we’ve heard about or seen from media accounts of spring practice were run, either. There was no sign of the famous Big Cat or Corey Raymond’s recent gauntlet drill. I was a little surprised that a college practice could be as simple, if not simpler than some of the practices I went through during high school, but this made sense later when Coach Miles told the students that the team was taking it easy for their final practice before the spring game.

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