Williams Misses Practice, Wallace Gets Pushed at Reese's Senior Bowl
Day two of the Reese’s Senior Bowl practice, which have become almost universally known as being more important than the game itself. The NFL, especially this year with no combine in Indianapolis, comes in with scouts, coaches, and personnel staff and check out the 120 players there in Mobile. A major attraction is Oklahoma State wide receiver Tylan Wallace, who had a sensational first day according to multiple accounts. There wasn’t much to check out unfortunately with cornerback Rodarius Williams. The Cowboys corner had a solid day on Tuesday but was held out of practice and watched in warm-ups on Wednesday.
A quick check with his position coach at Oklahoma State Tim Duffie revealed a problem that Duffie was still waiting to get details on.
“He tried to call me at 12:30 a.m. and then again at 5:30 a.m. this morning,” Duffie said. “I missed both calls, but he text me and said he was going to call me and needed to talk. I knew he wasn’t in pads today..”
Duffie wanted to wait until he’d talked to Williams, but was afraid that his foot injury might have come back again. Williams was initially injured in the Kansas State game and fought through the foot injury that cost him the second half of the Oklahoma and TCU games. After TCU, Williams opted out of the rest of the season to prepare for the Senior Bowl and workouts which will now mainly consist of NFL Combine drills at the Oklahoma State Pro Day.
Full pads on Wednesday and we first saw Wallace working in the offensive unit with former Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger during pre-practice walk-thru. Wallace ran a shallow cross on one play and a well run dig route later in the sequence. You could see during the early non-contact work that Wallace was developing a rivalry with Washington cornerback Keith Taylor Jr. Several times Taylor Jr. covered Wallace like he was playing for the national championship and it was just a half-speed walk-thru. This came back later in the practice.
ESPN’s coverage was focusing on Michigan big receiver Nico Collins, who opted out of this season, and Western Michigan speedster D’Wayne Eskridge during the practice. In 7-on-7 the play was a Tylan running a dig route and clearing Taylor Jr. and opening up three steps and catching the ball thrown by Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book. As Wallace ran out the play, Taylor Jr. closed in and used both hands to pop Wallace hard and knock him down.
The former Cowboys receiver popped up and looked like he was contemplating retaliation, but before anything could happen Miami Dolphins defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander, who was mic’d for television yelled.
You can’t miss the push as it comes toward the end of the video on this Twitter post from Jim Wyatt.
“We don’t have to do that, we don’t have to do that,” bellowed Alexander. “Get over here. Keep your poise, you understand, keep your poise.”
Taylor Jr. nodded and went on.
During 11-v-11 and then in full team drill, Wallace alternated between lining up wide on both the field and boundary and lining up in the slot position. He seemed to still be working primarily with the offensive unit when Ehlinger was in and that unit was the first to take reps in team. Wallace made a nice adjustment off a shallow cross on an scramble play by Ehlinger. Wallace turned up the field, but Ehlinger threw the ball outside.
Later, lined up outside on the boundary in twins, Wallace ran a dig curl inside and caught the ball from Book with a defender behind and on top of him. Wallace caught the ball completely facing the quarterback for a pitch-catch play and then made a nice move back to the outside to get the imaginary yards after catch. Practices are quick and the play compliment has been kept narrow to each quarterback.
There is one more day of practice as Hancock Whitney Stadium on the South Alabama campus and then a walk-thru on Friday before the 1:30 p.m. game televised on the NFL Network on Saturday.