2024 Reese’s Senior Bowl: American Team Day 2 Winners, Losers
For the second year in a row, Vendetta Sports Media has boots on the ground in Mobile, Ala., at the Reese’s Senior Bowl. It is a one-man operation here in Mobile, and I will do my best to bring you as much information as I can from the sidelines of Hancock Whitney Stadium. Trey will be releasing his notes immediately following each practice, which you can find today’s National team notes here.
Today’s practice never felt like it got out of second gear. It felt like it took forever to get into the individual drills, that’s because it did. I believe we were around the 45-minute mark before the offense and defense broke off and drilled. I don’t quite understand that logic but we press on.
Winner: Joe Milton
Trey mentioned it in his notes, linked above, and I don’t think it’s crazy. Joe Milton has been the most impressive Quarterback at the Senior Bowl. He came in with the most to gain from this and I believe he is showing good strides in the things he needed to work on. He had a great slant throw, at the end of the video linked below, where he highlighted great ball placement and showed good speed on his ball.
Don’t get it twisted, Milton still has some very apparent accuracy woes. But there is a lot to like on tape coming out of the Senior Bowl so far.
Side note: I attended his podium appearance at the media dinner tonight (more on that later) and he is a giant human. Good lord.
Loser: …no one…?
Don’t be confused by the heading. It isn’t that there were NO bad players today. You can highlight a handful of players who had bad reps. Miami’s Javon Cohen doesn’t look good at all. Houston’s Patrick Paul has underwhelmed so far through two days. We are still waiting to see Alabama’s Chris Braswell kick it into high gear. Javon Bullard out of Georgia has had more down than up plays through two days, even though today was better. I could go on.
Maybe the big loser of the day was the coaching staff for not having a very good practice plan. Compared to the National practice, this was a cakewalk. Instead, there are quite a few guys who I believe are winners, so let’s focus on the studs today, because there are significantly more winners than losers.
Eric Watts out of UConn was all over the place today, in the best way possible. I did not have much on him after day one here at the Senior Bowl, but my notes were littered with Watts. Aggressive, plays hard, great motor, always seems to be pushing forward wanting to make a play. He sat down with Christian Jones during a rep, which is no easy feat.
Tyler Guyton from Oklahoma and Christian Haynes from UConn both land on the winner’s side of things today. Guyton impressed yesterday and built off a good showing. His kickback, hand placement, never seems to really be overpowered by a bull rush. He will need to work on his pass pro against speed rushers, as he was beat at least twice today by it.
Haynes just feels like a mauler. He has a great base to him, sits down really deep and always feels like he has the leverage. Hand placement could use some cleaning up or maybe just refinement but it never felt like he was out of a rep.
I link the video above because one of the biggest winners of the day is Missouri’s Darius Robinson. The grab and pull against Guyton was very impressive, as Guyton is not one to be snatched like that. He showed great jump off the line, as you saw above the hands are violent and land where they need to be. Hips could loosen up a little still, but he is someone who is tending up.
Staying on the defensive line, both Braden Fiske from Notre Dame and McKinnley Jackson had good showings today at the Senior Bowl. Jackson was highlighted yesterday, but Fiske ended yesterday strong so I wanted to pay attention today. I am glad that I did. Fiske has the knowledge of angles and always finds a way to be in the right position to give himself leverage. Sweat from Texas won’t wow you in anything aside from run defense. But man, he is going to be a handful.
Moving to the offense, we have to mention South Carolina’s Xavier Legette. He was on the loser list yesterday, which can be found here, but he turned it around today in a big way. The drops yesterday were corrected, he was able to get open more, and we finally saw some movement out of him.
Honorable Mentions
I get a win for actually remembering sunscreen today. My ear specifically is burnt to a crisp but thanks to an unhealthy amount of aloe yesterday, my hand and forearm should make it.
In all seriousness, the media dinner event tonight also felt so uncoordinated. There are five podiums with mics and speakers, I believe only two worked. No one seemed to care to fix them either, even with a certain someone on the floor the entire evening. Do with that as you will.
