Rattlers have smooth first day of spring practice

Transfer quarterback Jonathon Holcombe takes his turn at running the Rattlers offense on the first day of spring workouts.
Photo by St. Clair Murraine

By St. Clair Murraine

Outlook staff writer

Throughout the first spring practice for the FAMU football team, so many things seemed to go right

Transfer quarterback Jonathon Holcombe threw with accuracy that makes his passes seem like he’d been practicing with the receiving corps for longer than the time they spent in off-season drills. 

And, when the players did team or individual drills they were proficient most of the afternoon inside Bragg Stadium.

“The guys have some retention so we are just trying to clean up some details,” said coach Willie Simmons. “Just get better at the fundamentals.”

Saturday was the first of 15 practices that the team will have, including the Orange and Green game on March 28. Simmons said he doesn’t expect the spring workouts to be too intense, but enough for him to evaluate the personnel.

FAMU quarterback coach KJ Black spent time on the sidelines with RaSean McKay (left) and Jonathon Holcombe (right) during Saturday’s practice.
Photo by St. Clair Murraine

“We really got to figure out who can play football, who can line up properly; take the right steps, make the right calls and do the little things it take to be a football player,” Simmons said.

With the Rattlers losing the MEAC offensive player in quarterback Ryan Stanley to graduation, Holcombe is locked in a battle with RaSean McKay for the starting job. However, there was little sign that either of them is too concerned about who got the starting job.

If nothing else, they will make each other better at what they do, said McKay, who played backup to Stanley last season.

“He pushes me to go harder; make no mistakes,” McKay said. “He teaches me and I help him.”

Holcombe, a three-star quarterback coming out of Texas, played last season at Kansas State. He said he has been in the FAMU playbook since the day he arrived on Jan. 16.

Both he and McKay took turn launching long balls, throwing some in the flats and handing off a few to the running backs. Each quarterback had plenty of praise for the receivers.

“It’s crazy,” Holcombe said. “They’re amazing. Watching all of them; from our first group down to the third group; we’ve got so many different threats. They are not lacking speed at all.”

McKay predicted that Xavier Smith will finish this season with 1,000 or more receiving yards.  Smith said he’d been putting in the off-season work to do just that.

 “Now that we are out here it’s all like second nature,” said Smith, who made several catches, including one on a 35-yard bomb from Holcombe.  “We’ve got a connection now so it’s easier to have different quarterbacks.”

On the questions of quarterback, Smith said each of the two has individual strengths.

“Every quarterback we got is liable to play on any down so we are just going to see at the end of the spring who comes out with it. But be sure; every quarterback we have can play.”