Big Plays Highlight Fourth Day of Practice

by Dan Scott - Correspondent - Tue Aug 09 01:19:23 GMT-04:00 2005

CLEMSON - Another day of practice, another day of rain.

Clemson went through it's fourth day of workouts Monday, again battling the elements. The on-again, off-again rain - at times very heavy - drove all workouts off the grass and onto the single artificial turf field at the Jervey complex.

"It hasn't really been good conditions to practice," head coach Tommy Bowden said. "We just had a deluge (for) about 30 minutes, just a heavy downpour that kind of put a damper on practice. It kind of drains the enthusiasm."

At least until someone makes a big play.

Working in shoulder pads and helmets for the second straight day, Clemson's semi-live scrimmaging was suddenly kick-started by a great catch on a slant pattern by freshman wide receiver Rendrick Taylor.

The catch seemed to wake up the entire roster, Bowden said, and almost on cue the big plays started coming.

"C.J. Gaddis hit somebody, then Lionel Richardson hit somebody - good collisions - and all the sudden everything picked back up," he said. "I was trying to make my point with the team that it's not my job to create enthusiasm. It's theirs. And I think they've done a really good job the last couple of days fighting through some (less than) ideal conditions."

Bowden will be looking for more of the same today when the team works for the first time in full pads.

"They're going to be a little leg-tired, but effort, leadership, enthusiasm, those type things," he said. "I want to see the running backs and defensive linemen, how they look.

Meanwhile, one of the more pleasant sights in Clemson's camp continues to be that of Cory Lambert.

Lambert, a highly-touted signee out of Greenville High School in Feb. 2004, wasn't allowed to enroll at Clemson last year because of academic issues. Then, at 6-foot-7 and around 335 pounds, Lambert was projected to be a possible contributor on the Tigers' offensive line.

A year later, finally in camp and wearing a perpetual smile, Lambert is a slimmer 294. To Bowden, Lambert's losing 30-plus pounds in a season away from the game showed an incredible amount of focus.

"It was kind of impressive. He's not a very soft guy to be as big as he is," Bowden said. "He stayed pretty active with his weightlifting and kept the weight down. That was a good indication that, with a year off, he didn't just sit back and do nothing."

NOTES

- The youngsters continue to impress in the early-going.

After mentioning the hits of Gaddis and Richardson earlier, Bowden said redshirt freshman cornerback Chris Clemons probably had "the hit of the day." Meanwhile, true freshman Barry Humphries worked most the evening at the No. 1 center slot. Humphries was filling in for Dustin Fry, who's nursing a sore hamstring.

Ray Ray McElrathbey, Haydrian Lewis also impressed at the corner slots, while wideouts Taylor and Tyler Grisham are pushing for first team status early in camp.

- Because of final exams for the second semester of summer school, Wednesday's practice won't get underway until 7:30 p.m., meaning the team will come off the field at nearly 11 p.m.

Today's workout is slated to end at 7:30 p.m. Again, none of the practices are open to the public.