Mailbag question: When does practice start

Guys,

When does fall practice begin? Nobody seems to know the answer. do the players start in pads right away or do they work into it after the first week?

Also, will the first team offense compete against the first team defense? How the heck is the defense supposed to improve when they are going up against an inexperienced offense? similar to what we saw last year. And be honest, the defense is scary bad and not in a complimentary way. The "D" got smoked by Cone in the spring game.

Dave K.

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Thanks for the question.

General rule of thumb is August 1st is the usual start of college football depending on what school, and when does that college coach wants to start. Depending on certain schools they might want to start earlier with less double sessions of practices. No matter when you start your only allowed so many practices and so many hours of practice with the kids before your first game.

We believe fall / summer practice begins around August 15th (which might be the first day with pads) so might be a few days before as well (August 10th). The Freshmen begin a week earlier so it can be anywhere from August 4th - 7th.

Player get a few days in shorts / helmets before they go in full pads. NCAA also has limited the number of double sessions allowed.

We have been concerned about the defense since returning from spring practice. The defense was handicapped by injuries to D. Warren, J. Mouton, and Mike Martin.

There are still positions, linebackers, cornerbacks, and safeties that have major depth problems.

In our opinion, if the defense can stay reasonably healthy it has a chance to be solid. Any major injury issues to one of the starting defensive linemen or cornerbacks would cause a real problem.

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