Wednesday Morning's 1 minute look at practice

-The BTN was in town to do a feature on the Boilers that will air next week...so Hope kept the offensive and defensive looks vanilla. He liked the cameras being inside the fences for one reason though- the players tend to want to play faster and show off a bit for the TV crew.

-McBurse still held out of practice...wore a "support device" (according to Hope) while going through drills. Hope says he'll be just fine in a few days. In his stead, Dierking and Pegram were taking the lion's share of the snaps with the 1s.

Hope says the team and coaches tend to take Dierking for granted at times because he works so hard and that Pegram is a natural at the position because of his compact frame and ability to shed tacklers.

Hope likes the possibilities of getting other guys (besides the RBs) the ball at times...the offense will show two-back, one-back and no-back looks this season...and, I think, he's hinting at a bit of trickeration with Smith, Siller, Marve and Co...Beware, UND and ensuing competition.

-Keith Smith was wearing tape on his right hand/wrist and Hope says a lot of guys are fighting through small injuries.

Some guys are coming back from small injuries- Albert Evans, Josh Johnson and others all returned today...Jeff Lindsay was kept out of practice due to a shoulder injury.

-A repeating theme you hear from coaches and players is that the defensive and offensive units are both getting better, but still aren't consistent enough. Ken Plue remarked that the team looks good...but not good-enough yet. That's OK...they still have 17 days and 15 practices left...nearly half way through "camp".

-Hope mentioned Eargle, K. Smith, Pegram, Charlot and Plue as guys who he thought were making noise so far. Specifically, he talked about how Ken Plue was "wasting away in front of our very eyes" as his weight has dipped to 345.