Day 5 Update: TU Football

The Tulsa football team had its fifth workout of preseason camp Wednesday morning, and third in shoulder pads and helmets, as the Hurricane practiced 140 minutes at Harwell Field.

“I think the progress is evident. I do think we're a much better team then we were at the start of camp,” said Blankenship. “We had some explosive plays offensively today and that's encouraging. Obviously, anytime that happens we have to play better defense, but I think we're growing as a team and that seems to be obvious right now.”

Blankenship continues to see progress from the younger players since putting on pads this past Monday.

“Although Tavarreon (Dickerson) was here in the spring, he's still a young guy and has had several big plays this camp. The young receivers continuing to show up are Nigel Carter and Bishop Louie, and occasionally Justin (Hobbs). D'Angelo Brewer has had a couple nice runs at running back, and I think he's starting to settle down,” said Blankenship. “Defensively, Jordan Dennis has been playing the best among the young guys in the secondary, but I still love the way we're moving around on defense.”

“Anytime we put pads on, it's funny, the guys that run around making plays, it's the running and catching they do well, but it's the blocking where they have issues. Those are big boys they have to block, so they have to figure that out,” added Blankenship.

The Hurricane will be in full pads on Thursday for the first time.

“Tomorrow, being in full pads is really important, even as physical as we try to play in practice, thud is not the same as tackling,” said Blankenship. “Defensively, we have to be able to tackle and tackle well, and we only get 3-4 real opportunities to tackle for a significant part of practice in the preseason, and this will be one of them.”