August 23, 2005
The Texas A&M football team practiced twice on Tuesday at the grass practice facility adjacent to Kyle Field.
The morning workout featured the team wearing shorts, shoulder pads, and helmets, while the evening workout was conducted in shorts, jerseys, and helmets.
During part of the evening session the Aggies spent time focusing on game situations, personnel moves and working with the addition of piped-in crowd noise.
A&M coach Dennis Franchione said he challenged the team to have a better workout then they did on Monday.
"I think the guys came out and knew they had to raise it up a bit," Franchione said. "They took the challenge and had a good morning practice. We went hard this morning and went in shorts this afternoon."
The nation's top dual threat quarterback Reggie McNeal will lead the Aggie offense again in 2005. Backing up McNeal is a pair of solid quarterbacks who Franchione said both deserve to play. He said redshirt freshman Stephen McGee would most likely get the nod to play mainly because he has not played while Ty Branyon saw action in games last year.
"We would be very fortunate if we could get those guys some playing time," Franchione said. "In this case, Ty (Branyon) has had playing time and Stephen (McGee) has not. I think one our priorities may be to get Stephen some playing time which may not be a statement that he's two and Ty is three, I don't want it to read that way. But since (McGee) has not played in a college football game, if we could get him into a game and get him a feel for things ... The more experience we could give him, that would be very beneficial for us down the line."
With a quarterback like McNeal heading the attack, Franchione does not feel like he needs to name a number two quarterback.
"What we have is a healthy situation where our two backups are growing and that's o.k.," Franchione said. "Quarterback is always a questioned position. But I think right now we are fortunate that we have an outstanding quarterback and two guys that we can let soak, get plays, and be put in as many situations as possible and that's what happened tonight. We put them both in a lot of situations to get their reactions."
The Aggies will wear full pads for their lone workout on Wednesday morning as they continue to prepare for the season opener at Clemson on Sept. 3 at 7 p.m. The game will be televised by ABC Sports.