After being unable to haul in a deep pass from quarterback Davis Brin, JuanCarlos Santana was upset with himself.
About midway through Friday’s practice, the third day of fall camp for the University of Tulsa, the Hurricane’s top returning receiver slammed the back wall in anger and then dropped to the ground to do some push-ups.
Moments later, he got back into the fray and made several outstanding plays, as the intensity and energy level continue to pick up during TU’s preseason practices. Friday’s training session was the last without pads.
“Did a couple of push-ups, got back right, back to action,” Santana said afterward. “You have to have a short memory with that type of stuff. Day 3 was fun, locked in a lot more, better connections between our second and third strings. Everybody was looking better today, even the defense was looking solid, making plays left and right.”
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Not too long after his moment of frustration, in the pseudo-scrimmage pitting offense against defense, Santana caught a deep pass from Brin for a 50-yard touchdown, and later made a nice spin move to elude safety Kendarin Ray and gain another 10 yards. He had several other moments going head-to-head against Ray, and the two seemed to push each other.
“K-Ray was pretty good today, just competition every time we go against each other,” Santana said. “Iron sharpens iron, and K-Ray is definitely sharpening me. All of them guys are sharpening us. Just having fun out here, doing what we love, just enjoying it. It was a good third day for sure.”
Hurricane coach Philip Montgomery was glad to see the rising level of intensity, particularly in the competitive nature between the offensive and defensive units.
“I was pleased with the competition of the day,” Montgomery said. “That’s what we’re looking for every day; we want great competition, all the way across the board. I think they’re starting to feel that we’re close to putting the shoulder pads on, the intensity’s starting to rise a little bit. Plus, they’ve been in meetings, ‘Hey, I don’t want to make this mistake again, I got to fit this gap better, I got to do this part better,’ so that always kind of leads to being more physical and being more competitive. I thought we had a competitive one today.”
In the last practice before they got Saturday off, even the 6:30 a.m. start time didn’t completely beat the heat, as the temperature rose into the high 80s by the time the two-hour-plus session was over.
“Third day in a row, we got a little more heat and humidity today, I think they felt that a little bit, but that being said, I thought our energy stayed good, our focus stayed good,” Montgomery said. “As you start getting tired and as that heat starts wearing on you, your mind starts wandering, and I thought our guys did a really good job of staying locked in throughout the practice.”
As for Santana, Montgomery wasn’t surprised to see his playmaking ability on display. Montgomery knows that the senior wideout, who was second on the squad last year with 51 receptions and 689 yards, scoring three touchdowns, will be an important part of the TU offense again this season.
“JC has been really hyper-focused throughout the spring and this summer,” Montgomery said. “He had a really good year last year and I think he is trying to build upon his growth and his maturity. He did some really nice things again today, but it doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, indifferent — for him, he is locked in to that improvement and, ‘if I screw up a route,’ he’s hard on himself, but I love the way he is staying locked in and focused on his job to get better.”
With the pads going on for Sunday’s practice following the brief break, Montgomery hopes to see the intensity go up another notch, but not so much that it results in anyone getting hurt once they start hitting each other for real.
“I want to see the consistency carry over a little bit, I want to see us get ourselves in position to make plays, and then making sure that we’re taking care of each other,” Montgomery said. “Because you turn on ESPN right now, and every day it’s talking about injuries happening during fall camps across the country.
“We want to get great work, but as we put those pads on, sometimes guys forget about the scheme part of it and all they want to do is go hit. You got to play within the system on both sides of the football, and then the physical aspect is going to come by getting yourself in the right position.”