Michael-Anthony Okwura

Gorgeous sunny day in Berkeley. Plenty of NFL scouts in attendance to watch a very well organized and high energy practice.Building upon the approach Coach Lupoi took this past Spring, every second of the practice and every square inch of the football field were fully utilized. The size of the staff and roster lead to no fewer than four different groups competing at a given time. The sole exception was when they ran full 11v11 with the referees, which took up a material portion of the day.That makes it hard to fully track the practice and make sure you're seeing all of the action. With that in mind, here's the notebook:The teams awfully healthy after four practices. Three backup players are out and not able to participate at all. Another player went down today with what appeared to be a somewhat serious injury (A PWO not in the two deeps). A small handful of other players didn't fully participatePlace kicking appears to be a non competition. Chase Meyer made everything today, both in warmups and live snaps. He hit all the way out to 53 yards. Smooth, confident and highly accurate. He may well win the KO job as well. Towns McGough has a big leg but he was struggling with his consistencyMany aspects of the camp are different from the Wilcox era. The length, intensity and focus on making sure every player is involved all the time stand out. Tosh is on the mic orchestrating sessions and when they go into positional group technique and fundamental work, he gets down and dirty (today the focus was on the OLBs). It's hard to discount the impact the additional staff has on practice. More attention to detail, more eyes on the players, etcA lot of banter from the senior leaders on the team. You could hear the voice of JKS, Nate Burrell, Derek Wilkins and Ricky Fletcher throughout practice. At this point in camp, there doesn't seem to be a set depth chart. On both Offense and Defense, you saw a lot of mixing and matching. I suspect that likely changes in a few practices as they start to look to gel the OL, the WR/TE/RBs with JKS as well as the secondary. I do think there's going to be a lot of competition at ILB and DL for the starting nods and plenty of competition throughout for the two deepsIt was a pretty even split in terms of competitive plays in both 11s and drills between the O and D. The OL had some nice moments in the 6v6 run drills and in running in 11v11. The D had a few TFLs in their as well but overall, some good push up front.Kingston Lopa had two interceptions, both off Brousseau on balls that shouldn't have been thrown. Brousseau has a nice arm and can run but today was not his best in terms of decision making. JKS had a very nice day, better in the live 11v11 than in drills but good all around. He had at least two spectacular throws, though one was dropped. He looked to have good command of the offense, made a great read for a red zone drill 15+ yard throw for a TD to Mini and earlier put a ball between three defenders for another Mini TD while he was moving laterally in the pocket. All the RBs had good moments. Emory is a nice player, not as quick as Vargas or as powerful as Mohammed but a solid, low center of gravity back. Vargas has a lot of juice and wiggle and Mohammed gets up to top speed quickly and he moves defenders backwardsIan Strong sat out today from the live work though he looks healthy. No one WR stood out though Trevor Rogers popped a bit with his added strength and confidence. He almost made a great TD catch from JKS but Lopa knocked it away a millisecond after Rogers caught itHamper, Perry, Hendricks, King, Swinney, Morgan and Sams all had good moments. Thomas at Purcell both looked good and true freshman TE Noa is a big body who moves well. Hard to watch the OL and conclude much given the mixing and matching. Williams III and Ruffins stood out in 1v1s and Swinney looked solid. Half the OL vs DL work was on the opposite field so don't mistake an omission as a criticism. The DL saw Burrell back, Ashun Sanders playing well along with Wilkins. Johnson had some really nice moments, including a stuffed run and a holding call earned on a bull rush in 11v11. He needs to shed some weight but he had a strong practice. Michael-Anthony Okwura had a solid day as well. I thought Tuitele and Jernigan stood out the most at ILB and true Freshman JD McKinley is huge and quick with a high motor. Crosby and Lopa were the standouts in the secondary. Crosby was the one DB who couldn't be beat on the 1v1 coverage drills and Lopa had the three highlight plays with the 2 ints and the pass breakup. Marquis Groves Killebrew, Quimiri Shemwell and Tre Harrison also popped today.Sams is really quick and fast but dimunitive, not quite as small as Adams but in the same zip code. Ej Morgan is smooth with good body control and he plays with some physicality. He's super thin and I can't imagine him not redshirtingThere was a lot of work on tackling and special teams coverage work. More than I can remember seeing in a session this early in Fall Camp.