All-American Bowl Tuesday Notebook

San Antonio, Texas -- After getting knocked in the mouth on Monday at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, there are several positions and players starting to realize they are playing with the big boys now and beginning to live up to their potential.

West

Michael Goodson is not announcing his decision during Saturday's game, but he is down to Texas A&M, USC, and Oklahoma State.

After sticking to safety in the first three practices, Stafon Johnson finally got a chance to play at running back this afternoon. He looked much more comfortable at running back than at safety.

In All-Star games, the deep snapper is an unnoticed position but always seems to play a pivotal role in each game. For the West, local product Cody Beyer is doing a good job accurately placing the ball for punter Kyle Petersen, who appears to be limping somewhat.

Strongest arm award for the West: hands down Jevan Snead.

Snead and Mitch Mustain were again on fire this afternoon. Both finished perfect on the afternoon in seven-on-seven drills. The backs were heavily used as receivers, especially DeMarco Murray. The most surprising number -- zero completions and zero times thrown to for David Ausberry.

However, in the full-team scrimmage, Ausberry more than made up for the no-throws by catching several balls. Ken Beasley has started to assume the role of top wide receiver on the West.

Mustain took most of the snaps with what appeared to be the first-team offense during the full-team scrimmage.

Miami assistant coaches Mario Christobal and Randy Shannon took a keen interest in watching Ian Symonette throughout the contact portions of practice.

Things are getting chippy on the West as there was a scuffle between Goodson and Jones. Jones, the instigator on defense, tried to rip the ball away from Goodson at the bottom of a pile.

In one-on-one competition with the linemen, the defense took the title winning 18 to 15 including Eddie Jones winning four out of six times and Gerald McCoy with 3 wins. Ian Symonnette and Matt Carufel had four wins apiece followed by Steve Schilling had three wins.

East

Micah Johnson conintues to impress at linebacker,showing agression and lateral movemant as he took James Aldridge into the bench. He met C.J. Spiller in the hole up the middle later in the same series. The linebackers will be the strength of the East defense.

After taking some big hits yesterday, the defense is biting back today especially after a big hit by Brandon Spikes on Chris Wells that brought cheers from the crowd.

C.J. Spiller, nursing an ankle injury since the Cal/Florida game, appears fully back to speed and pushing for the starting spot in Saturday's game.

Barry Gallup is getting more impressive each day. As a returner on special teams he broke two that would have been touchdowns.

The East offense looked very crisp this afternoon. Practice ended with goaline drills which the players took a huge liking to and were fired up. A huge improvement over the stumbles of Monday.

Chris Pool's player of the day was Raeshon McNeil, who had blanket coverage of Vidal Hazelton throughout the day. Justin Boren and Dan Wenger were the two that stood out from the pack in drills and the most improved through the day.

Inury Report: After rolling his ankle in practice yesterday, Jacques McClendon worked out this morning but he was held out of practice this afternoon. Steve Brown was also being held out for precautionary reasons due to a pre-existing broken ankle swelling up, but he came back for the last half of the afternoon session. Jarrell Miller pulled himself out of practice with the same groin injury he aggravated yesterday afternoon.