Hat tip to the Official Site, which comes bearing news of Petrino's mind:
"It was great to see him out there," Petrino said. "He's been running well - been doing a lot of running outside of practice... The football conditioning is so much different than just running sprints."
The coach said the 11-year veteran will get some reps in the third or fourth preseason game.
Hallejuah! Whether or not he'll ever be able to munch up gobs of yardage like Pacman (not Jones) again, I feel better about having Warrick Dunn out there. He's like a security blanket or some shit. It's a good thing that we have positive news for Dunn, because the other item I want to get to tonight is a little less cheerful:
"Chris did a pretty good job executing. He was accurate. He made a couple decisions we would like to see different but (he) did move the team... I thought D.J. struggled. He wasn't as accurate throwing the ball as he needs to be and, you know, missed some plays we would expect him to make."
Call me an anal retentive, overreacting English major with a metaphorical axe to grind if you must, but this doesn't seem like good news for Shock. The whole "we haven't said anyone's a starter yet" line doesn't work very well when it's followed by a pretty disapproving statement on D.J.'s work. Sounds a lot like Redman is going to be handed the job, which is still a frustrating development to me. I know Shockley might not be very good in game situations, but the coaching staff won't know for sure until he gets a real shot at a regular season game. We already know Chris Redman hasn't been successful in this league, so why give him the backup job when your starter is only a tier above him in the consistency department? Frustrating. And that's without even mentioning that Casey Bramlet could conceivably be a better QB than both of them; he almost certainly has a stronger arm than Redman. This is one of the more important training camp battles, for sure, but I'd like to think it wasn't over after it barely started.