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SMU football head coach Chad Morris met the media Thursday before the Mustangs' first practice of the 2016 preseason camp, talking about a number of subjects including how the Mustangs will be different in his second year at the helm, the leadership players showed over the offseason, player combinations on the offensive line and injury updates.

Sooooooo glad football is back.
OK, practice is back. But still ... football.

121 day ones! #PonyUp #GetHere!!!!!

Not mentioned yesterday:

Media is allowed a very brief window during which we can watch — after we talked to Chad Morris, we basically were allowed a few minutes. We watched stretching, and then some initial drills — walk-through pass routes against offensive players posing as stand-in defenders, etc. So we saw very little.

However:

The players who were out with yellow jerseys Thursday were DT Mason Gentry, TE Jordan Severt and DE Delontae Scott.

Also, we saw maybe a minute of kickoff return/coverage drills. Among those who took at least a turn at returning the ball: WR Kevin Thomas, WR Eric Hawkins and DB Kevin Johnson.

SMU found a pair of talented freshman running backs last year in Xavier Jones and Braeden West, each of whom had a strong debut season.

This year's team has a different look at the position. Jones and West both were fairly slender last year, but endured the pounding that comes with the position, and over the offseason, each bulked up — West added close to 10 pounds, while Jones added nearly 20.

The newcomers, however, are starting out bigger. Aphonso Thomas arrived in January and was listed at 5-10 and 190 pounds — already bigger than Jones and West were last season. The two new freshmen — Jordan Carmouche and Ke'Mon Freeman — are significantly larger. Freeman is listed at 5-11, 205, but looks bigger and reportedly has impressed teammates with his strength and work ethic in the weight room. Carmouche is listed at 6-0, 216, but head coach Chad Morris said he is significantly heavier than that, weighing in at 240. Asked if Carmouche might eventually move back to his other high school position — linebacker — Morris simply said that he will start out at running back.

What the new backfield bulk means for the SMU offense remains to be seen. Thomas got a headstart over Freeman and Carmouche by working with the team in the spring. Any running back will have to perform well to take carries away from West and Jones, and we haven't seen Freeman and Carmouche run yet. But with the departure of Prescott Line, the coaches now have some bigger options in the backfield if the newcomers don't redshirt. How well they learn the offense and perform in practice will dictate whether they play, but to the naked eye, the running game now has more possibilities.

running game needs to show significant improvement to take some pressure off our QBs. Let's hope the OL can get some push this year

Really interested to see the line with Pursley getting bigger and Evan Brown moving inside to center

Does anybody know if HS football coaches are still showing up to our practices?

They are always welcome... they have their own practices to attend to.