Practices in general don't have many plays that make you question whether something amazing just happened. There's been maybe three or four times between my time as a student video assistant at Cal and as the publisher of Cal Rivals. One was Keenan Allen making a diving one handed grab on an errant throw from Allan Bridgeford. One was Giorgio Tavecchio hitting the cameraman who I was training during field goal work (the kick was good). And one came today.

OLB/Nickel defender Deon White had good coverage on Jeremiah Hawkins, and with a Robby Rowell pass that hung up just a little too long, White snagged it out of the air with one hand. From my angle it looked like White would bat it down, but he snagged it out of the air one-handed, and the defensive backs went nuts.

"That was a heck of a play, one-handed," Justin Wilcox remarked in the aftermath, "Deon's got some ability, and we're looking for consistency from him, physically and with the detail of the assignments on defense or special teams, where he can really help us, it was great to see that play, with that focus, and we need to see that every day."

Otherwise, it was another day of full pads, which saw the Bears run with a lot of their red-zone sets, along with working a perimeter drill, which saw two blockers going up against two defenders with a swing route being caught behind them, in what's often called the 'millennial Oklahoma drill' (which the Bears did today without live tackling).

"It was ok, in order to be effective offensive, you've got to be able to hold and sustain blocks on the perimeter," Wilcox said, "on defense you've got to do a good job of setting edges, getting off blocks, and shrinking the field, so it's a very competitive drill. We'll be doing it again."

A couple standouts there were Ben Hawk Schrider (for his block shedding), and Jake Tonges (for his blocking from the slot/in space)

It is at this point that some of the guys are feeling the first few days of fall camp, as full contact for some of the offensive linemen takes its toll.

"Starting to feel a little sore," sophomore offensive lineman Will Craig said, "you start feeling it a little bit this part of fall camp, but I'm feeling good out there, it's fun to be out there playing football again."

Craig is one of the notable gainers from the offseason, as per his own admission, he was sitting at 265 lbs during his moments in the Washington game. Now he's at around 290-295, and feeling more able in the run game than ever.

"(265) is not enough to run-block in the Pac-12," Craig said, "coach Becton, Liz (McNear, Director, Performance Nutrition), they've helped me with my diet, the weights, I'm up to 290, 295, eating well, lifting the weights, and I feel like I haven't sacrificed any speed for that. I'm excited to be able to run block finally."