Spring Signs

Depth Chart - Offense
Depth Chart - Defense
Depth Chart - Spec. Teams
Roster - Alphabetical
Roster - Numerical
Roster - Coaches

(The Rock Report) - As I've detailed in this column in past years, you don't learn very much in the Spring. The list of past MVPs and players who looked like they were going to have breakout years, but disappeared is longer than the list of players who showed promise and fulfilled it.

For the most part, spring football is fairly useless as a gauge of the future. It's one scrimmage. You can get an idea of what coaches are thinking, depth chart shifts and you can see some potential emerging, but not much else.

What I'd like to see, and this is a modest list, is:

• Armando Allen show true running back ability: Patience, vision and decisiveness. He seems to have all of the ability in the world, but in the past he hasn't allowed for the hole to open, often chosen the wrong hole and has made the wrong decisions in the open field.
• Kyle Rudolph demonstrate the ability to blow his man off the line of scrimmage and signs of true Tight End depth.
• Toryan Smith surprise me with his lateral ability and cover skills.
• More aggressiveness along the offensive line.
• Some size and ability out of Kapron Lewis-Moore, Hafis Williams and Ethan Johnson. In other words, will these three crucial players at least look physically capable of holding the point of attack.
  
• Signs of coaching chemistry.
• No major injuries.

And even that's a pretty aggressive list given past spring performance. If Smith can play well in the middle linebacker spot and Hafis can play defensive tackle well, that fundamentally changes what Tenuta can do with this defense. If Allen can break some runs and the offensive line can control the line of scrimmage (and that means an effective tight end,) those things will open up the offensive play book.

You don't learn much, but for fans dying for their Irish football fix, you can at least pick up some signs. Or at least things you can pretend there are signs until we really see what we've got on the field next year.