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Potential stars in the making
Posted: Thursday April 27, 2000 11:56 AM
Spring practice and spring training share more than time on the calendar and similar names. Think about it. The players are largely unknowns, and there are plenty of them. If the big names work out at all, they don't do anything dangerous lest they hurt themselves and not be ready when the season actually begins.
Could be the Grapefruit League. Could be the Cactus League. Or it could be the Big Ten Conference.
Coaches love spring practice because they get to teach outside the regular season's seven-day-a-week pressure-cooker. The rest of us spend our time reading stories or watching practice and saying, in unison, "Who's that?"
There is a difference between spring practice and spring training, however. In baseball, a lot of the players working out and playing the last six innings of exhibition games end up in Triple A come April. In college football, the numbers game dictates that almost all the players on the practice field or in the spring game will be seen in the real games come fall. In that sense, spring practice is sort of like the trailers that precede the feature. If you're like me, you get to the local multicineplexarama 10 minutes early just to make sure you see all the trailers, just to see what will hit the big screen in the months to come.
Now that spring practice has wound down, it's time to take a look at a few players who stood out on their respective campuses this spring. They may not become stars. They may one day be All-Americas. But this is the first time they emerged from the anonymity of the depth chart.
Michigan tailback Ryan Beard is the perfect B Train to spell Anthony (A Train) Thomas, who needs someone else to make a few milk runs. After getting a total of 304 carries in his first two seasons at Michigan, Thomas carried the ball 301 times last fall. That's not the way the Wolverines like to do things. Beard, a 5'9", 207-pound redshirt freshman, is the jitterbug who will serve as the perfect complement to the 6'2", 221-pound Thomas. With a young defense, the Wolverines will need to bleed the clock at times. It looks as if they'll have the chance to do so.
West Virginia rush linebacker Chris Edmonds is no stranger to Big East coaches. For two seasons he has played strongside linebacker, taking the punishment that comes along with it while still making 149 tackles. Now he shifts to the Mountaineers' glamour position, the one that has produced Renaldo Thomas, Canute Curtis and Gary Stills in recent years. The 6'3", 245-pound Edmonds is the anchor of a defense that has to redeem itself for the performances that led to West Virginia's 4-7 record last year.
Auburn wide receiver Deandre Green has been a long time arriving. A highly sought recruit 15 months ago, Green went to prep school to shore up his academics and enrolled in college college for the spring quarter. Now it appears he will shore up a Tigers offense that suffered one indignity after another last year. Green caught three touchdown passes in the A-Day game and looked like a man among boys. The Auburn defense, banged up and bereft of any size, may make a lot of stars this fall. But Green doesn't need any help.
Washington tailback Paul Arnold served as coach Rick Neuheisel's gift to Husky Nation in February 1999. Arnold, one of the most highly recruited running backs in the country a year ago, quickly warmed to Neuheisel, who signed with Washington himself about three weeks before Arnold did. The Seattle native has added 15 pounds, mostly in his upper legs, since coming to school. Now 6'1" and 200 pounds, he took over the Washington spring game by gaining 258 all-purpose yards, including a 58-yard touchdown run and a 68-yard reception. Between Arnold and do-it-all quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo, the Huskies may yet be able to camouflage their lack of a go-to receiver.
Minnesota quarterback Asad Abdul-Khaliq made remarkable progress over the course of the spring, proving it by completing 13 of 20 passes for 184 yards and a touchdown against the Gophers' first-team defense in the spring game. The redshirt freshman may not win the starting job in August -- senior Andy Persby, who started three games two years ago, is playing baseball this spring -- but Abdul-Khaliq will make coach Glen Mason fret a little less over the summer.
Look for Abdul-Khaliq and all the others on Saturday matinees across the nation this fall.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Ivan Maisel covers college football for the magazine and is a frequent contributor to CNNSI.com.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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