Do you Insiders have the opportunity to observe the scout team during practice?
I am very curious to know how the young offensive linemen are doing? In particular are any of them, some of which came into the program with mean streak reputations, showing the kind of fire and toughness needed in the SEC?
I would not waste any of their red-shirt seasons on this season, but the future depends on this team finding five linemen with those qualities that hopefully can learn the plays and not choke under game time situations.
We don’t get to watch practice after fall camp ends in mid-August, unfortunately.
That is sad. No wonder the coaches are treated like they have no credibility. Their entire practices can’t contain top secret information.
When a head coach has issues of trust with some of his fans a little transparency might go a long way towards earning some trust that things are being done to reverse the downward trend of his team. Instead they act like they have something to hide. It is not like they are working on the Manhattan Project.
When there is a vacuum of information the void is usually filled by negative speculation. It must be human nature.
It is a short-sighted policy I think.
There are very good reasons to keep fans out. Some of them may not be our fans, for one thing. It would be easy for some Springdale member of the Gus Bus, for instance, to put on a red shirt, take some cellphone video of our practice this week and send it to Auburn. Even one of our fans could put something up on Facebook that would be useful to opponents. If you look around the country, very few schools have open practices any more. Its not just Bielema paranoia.
Same applies to the media. Clay or Tom Murphy is not going to give away the game plan with the written word. But video could. And if you keep out the video cameras, you also have to exclude the print guys as a matter of fairness.
There really is no such thing as print or broadcast anymore. Every news organization is a multimedia organization. Ours, for instance, has print and broadcast elements.
When practices are open, Arkansas limits video to 20 minutes, which essentially is stretching and a few position drills; very vanilla stuff. But open practices are open to everyone, regardless of affiliation.
Good point, and I suspected that was the case, even though I’ve been out of the media business for 24 years now. In my day multimedia meant I fed some tape recorded quotes to UPI Radio after I wrote my story.
I think there’s a minority that speculate negatively. I think most professionals that have earned their place in the world don’t really question another doing his job. They just look at results. I neither have the time, nor do I care about the process. I just evaluate on the results. Now, if I’m asked to give my opinion I will. But if you don’t ask, I don’t interfere. You can dig your own hole or mountain for all I care.
Gary Pinkel and I talked about that this week. He said the arrival of the cell phone ended open practices. The ability to take photos or video of formations is what coaches hate. He said there was value to having a trusted reporter in practice. Unfortunately coaches can’t pick who watches as a matter of fairness.
Ask Wake Forest about that.
Not sure I said a word about video or fans. I focused on the media.
I also did not say they should be allowed in for the entire practice. But I am sure there are drill periods abd Scout Team workouts that could be open with exposing the game plan.
From the look of the starters, I’m sure the practice team completely sucks. Brutal honesty, I apologize, but the starters are terrible… so.
I’m not an insider though.
so that is not a thing to add to criticisms of Bielema.