University of South Dakota Athletics

A mixture of wind, rain and cool temperatures Wednesday made for a highly successful practice. That's not a line Coyote football could easily make in the past, but it certainly rung true this go-around. Bob Nielson's squad had enjoyed relatively calm conditions up to this week, but the handling of wet footballs and the ability to execute when conditions aren't perfect proved valuable.
 
"Wednesday was a perfect example that without that practice facility, we would have had to cancel practice," said Nielson. "You don't want to waste practice days because of weather when you only get 15 of them. I thought we accomplished what we wanted to get accomplished on Wednesday, and did not let those weather conditions affect us, which was a real positive."
 
Wednesday was another in a string of recent practices devoted more to situational work. The numbers say that the Coyotes weren't as efficient inside the red zone a year ago and had a number of offensive drives stall on 3^rd-and-short and 4^th-and-short. Alas, more time has been devoted to those areas in recent practices.
 
"We had two practices that we specifically worked those situations, and then we incorporate the individual work into our live segments that we will continue to do throughout the rest of the spring," said Nielson. "Defensively, we had to match that installation. So they had to put in their short-yardage packages as well. The red zone was an area where we gave up a higher percentage of touchdowns than we did the year before. So those two areas mirror each other as areas where we need improvement."
 
The good news, from a fan's perspective, is that the team is holding practices at 2:30 p.m. each of these next two Saturdays and that both are open to the public. Both will feature some live scrimmage segments so that people can really get a feel for what the Coyotes' have been working on this offseason.
 
Nielson was able to briefly share some positions and players who have stood out through the first half of the spring slate. Specifically, he spoke of younger players along the offensive line and their ability to impact the program as it moves forward. Isaac Erbes, redshirt freshman from Urbandale, Iowa, has seen tremendous growth and is playing one of the tackle positions this spring. He also talked about the receiving corps and linebacker groups.
 
"For the second half of spring, we are going to give our young receivers a chance to really get a lot of meaningful reps in our scrimmages," said Nielson. "We think that group has some talent that we want to make sure gets evaluated.
 
"On the defensive side, we see some really good things from our linebacker group. Kind of the same thing, we will get those guys the majority of the meaningful reps to continue to enhance their development."
 
Practice #9 is Friday afternoon ahead of Saturday's practice on the outdoor practice field directly north of the DakotaDome.