Practice Report: No. 6

FRESNO, Calif. - Tuesday marked the first two-a-day practices for the Bulldog football team on day six of fall camp. The Bulldogs drilled for just about their normal two-and-a-half hours in the morning, cutting it just a bit short of that mark, and will come out Tuesday afternoon for a condensed afternoon practice in half pads to work on third down-and-long situations and the passing game.

The afternoon practice will be the seventh of fall camp. At its practice No. 6 in full pads during the morning, Fresno State again went through a mixture of thud and live scenarios preparing for all facets of the game. That ended with a live third-down competition between the offense and the defense.

"We had a good physical and competitive practice," head coach Tim DeRuyter said after the morning session. "The defense yesterday got beat in a drill, but came back today and won the drill. It was good to see them respond and now the offense has to respond."

Fresno State on both sides of the ball came into fall camp with a chip on its shoulder and that notion of fighting back and responding is what the Bulldogs are set out to do in 2016. That holds particularly true on the offensive line where the Bulldogs return just 24 total starts combined from their returnees, which ranks in a tie for the seventh fewest returning starts from any offensive line in the FBS.

"Me and [Jacob Vazquez] we set the bar pretty high for ourselves and we want to be one of the best offensive lines in the country," said junior Aaron Mitchell, who owns 12 of those 24 starts on the line after starting every single game in 2015. "I don't think that is far out. We got a lot of hard working dudes, dudes that were not recruited heavily… so it kind of just gives us that workman attitude to want to come out here and be a blue-collard group."

The offensive line back in spring football started to develop under coach Mark Weber. That chemistry, which only maturated over the summer, is now helping them out on the field.

"Just spending so much time together, on and off the field, we are getting to the point now where we are still making our calls, but already know what each other is going to do," senior Jacob Vazquez said. "It makes things a lot more efficient."

Although they lost the third-down competition, which consisted of third down tries from 10, 7, 5, 3 and 1-yard out, the line has been a bright spot in camp thus far.

That has been evident by the number of big plays they have led the offense to. In one of the team periods Tuesday morning, the line opened up a big hole that running back Dejonte O'Neal dashed straight up the middle for a touchdown run of 50-plus yards.

There have been a number of big plays in the running game in the first week behind the offensive line, especially Monday and Tuesday in their first true test being in full pads for the first time. That aspect has been good to see after the 2015 season when Fresno State averaged just 3.9 yards per carry, ranking second-to-last in the Mountain West.

"We are understanding more of our offense," Mitchell said. And that learning aspect has been a key for the linemen under coach Weber.

"He always says just make a new mistake, don't keep making the same one," Mitchell added about Weber's emphasis on learning. "That and have great effort. His biggest pep-peeve is if you are out there and don't give a great effort. Offensive line is all about effort. If you are playing with great effort and you are blocking someone hard, something great can happen out of that."

Vazquez and Mitchell have been the leaders of the first unit, where they have been joined at left tackle by newcomer Christian Cronk, Micah St. Andrew at right guard and David Patterson at right tackle.

That group is beginning to gel in running a new type of spread offense under coordinator Eric Kiesau.

"It feels like a hybrid of old school and new school," Vazquez said of the offense. "New school with the tempo and run-pass options, but old school in the physicality and the down-hill running aspect of it. It is a little bit of the best of both worlds."

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Players Mentioned

Christian Cronk

Aaron Mitchell

Dejonte O'Neal

David Patterson

Micah St. Andrew

Jacob Vazquez

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