Another hot one today. Big surprise right, I mean, South Louisiana in August, who woulda thought? I think by the time we went outside for the outdoors portion of practice it was 94 degrees with a heat index of 108. It was definitely hot. The players are now in pads, though they haven't yet moved to full contact. The intensity in practice is definitely heating up and there were multiple scuffles at practice today and I just know there's going to be media outlets everywhere blowing it all out of proportion. So let me comment on the two I saw first.
Defensive lineman Maason Smith and Charles Turner JR, their drill went a little passed the whistles and there was some extra pushing and shoving going on, but nothing out of the ordinary. The big one everyone is going to be talking about the big scuffle that occurred during the 11-on-11 portion outdoors. After one play linebacker Harold Perkins and Malik Nabers got into it and things escalated into a full on scrum, with grabbing, pushing and some bodies ending up on the ground. So, I'm going to say this, I've been around football since I was six years old, I've seen more preseason camps than I can remember and when you put the pads on, your outside, it's 108 degrees, the intensity is amping up, things like this are inevitable. It happens all the time. I know there was a young reporter I won't say any names there who couldn't wait to get back to the team ops room and tweet about it, pretty sure he might have even tweeted about it before we were supposed to but hey that's on him not me. Also, I heard reports of some punches being thrown, I did not see any punches thrown from the angle that I had, not saying they didn't happen. Just saying I did not see any from where I was standing.
I say all that to say, I know that some media members are going to sensationalize that altercation. But all it was, was football players on a 108-degree day, on one of the first few days in pads getting a little too carried away. Head coach Brian Kelly addressed it about as well as you could expect. Malik Nabers and Kyren Lacy were removed from practice and Harold Perkins was taken out and didn't participate the rest of the day. Again, don't read too much into it. It's August, pads are on, players are just starting to hit each other, it's football. These things happen. Anyone making it any bigger than that, probably hasn't ever had a full set of pads on in August. It's normal.
During the post practice availability, we got Sai'vion Jones and Mason Taylor and both players commented on it basically saying the same thing. They also said that coach Kelly addressed the team, telling them they have to look out for their brothers and protect the brotherhood. We'll have more from them shortly.
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