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UCLA Football: Fall Camp Practice Notes From Day 1

By James Puryear

Nov 21, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; UCLA Bruins quarterback Josh Rosen (3) passes the ball during the second half against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium. UCLA won 17-9. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 21, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; UCLA Bruins quarterback Josh Rosen (3) passes the ball during the second half against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium. UCLA won 17-9. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports /
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On Monday the UCLA Football team took to the IM field to begin their first day of fall camp. Here’s some notes and tidbits from practice.

General Practice Notes

Practice started off with fundamentals, the defensive side of the ball practicing formations and making sure they were set correctly.  Every position group spent additional time working on movement or stretches well into practice.

Practice as a whole ran very efficiently, there was little to no downtime between drills.

Related Story: 5 Position Battles to Watch in Fall Camp

As in previous camps and practices, the Bruins were on two separate fields, which is primarily split into offense and defense. With that, here are my observations with the individual position groups:

Quarterbacks

  • While Josh Rosen is firmly entrenched as the man, the battle for back up is alive and well.
    Dymond Lee is competing for a spot at quarterback. UCLA brought in 3 quarterbacks with the 2016 class which in addition to Lee also include Matt Lynch and Devon Modster.
  • Mike Fafaul  appears to be the current #2 guy but I imagine there is definitely competition between him and Lynch for the spot. Lynch appears to have noticeably improved from spring.

Running backs/Full backs

  • Jalen Starks makes his appearance in Westwood. He had a nice catch and run in 7 on 7 passing drills.

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Wide Receivers

  • Heading into fall camp there’s the obvious question of who was going to fill in for Jordan Payton, Devin Fuller, and Thomas Duarte. As you would expect the competition is wide open.
  • Jordan Wilson and Audie Omotosho had some nice catches at their UCLA debut practices.   With the change to the offense and the tight end position being more featured, Wilson’s debut in particular looks encouraging.
  • Theo Howard quickly displayed why he was so heavily recruited for his speed, catching multiple deep balls.   From what I saw at spring ball and today, I would be incredibly surprised if he didn’t get considerable playing time this year.
  • Mossi Johnson might have had the most catches out of any receiver in his debut practice since the Bruins lost him for the 2015 season due to an ACL tear vs ASU.  
  • In related news, Cordell Broadus has left the team again.

Related Story: Cordell Broadus Has Left The Team Again

Defensive Line

  • It was nice to see Eddie Vanderdoes back healthy and ready to go.
  • Osa Odighizuwa immediately made an impression. He looked like the biggest guy on the defensive line. Odighizuwa just came off winning his third straight state title in wrestling.   Personally speaking, he’s one of the players I’m most excited to watch during camp.
  • Takkarist McKinley demonstrated his athleticism today swatting a pass down from what seemed to be 10 feet in the air with authority. After having a fantastic spring McKinley looks to continue to progress and become a dominant player on the defensive end.

Secondary

  • As a side note, when practice first started I couldn’t tell what group was the receivers because the defensive backs were working on catching drills.
  • Fabian Moreau is back from his foot injury.   While I didn’t watch him too closely, whenever I saw him he always seemed to be on his man.

If you have any questions about tweet me at @SorenJRP.  Below are some pictures of practice.

Next: UCLA Ranked 24th in the Preseason AP Poll

Go Bruins!