Spirited practice this morning

After two days away from the field, the Yale football team was ready to go this morning - maybe too ready.

With more hits causing players to hit the ground, Yale coach Tom Williams was not a happy camper. The last portion of practice saw more than a few players kicked out of drills.

Just stupid plays, especially the young guys," Williams said. "They are still learning how to practice. The whole idea is we want to practice full speed but we want to be smart. We want those guys to get to the game on Saturday. When that happens, the guy gets fired on the spot to make a point. You are going to miss out on these rep opportunities if you don't practice the way we want you to practice. I had to do that a couple times today but it is better to pull them off the pile than throw them on the pile. I like our attitude and like our aggressiveness. We pride ourselves on being physical but sometimes we have to be smarter in practice."

Junior linebacker Will McHale did not practice after dealing with some concussion like symptoms after Saturday's season-opening win over Georgetown. Williams said McHale feels fine but the decision was made to err on the side of caution.

"He had some tests on Sunday and said he feels fine, he is symptom free," Williams said. "This was simply precautionary. He should be back (practicing) tomorrow. We will probably keep him out of contact just to be safe but he is going to get reps tomorrow and be ready to go on Saturday."

The offense looked sharp early on in the 11 on 11 drills I witnessed including Patrick Witt hooking up with Chris Smith on a long touchdown pass

Later in the practice, the offense sputtered with Nick Okano and Brian Leffler recording interceptions and the ball ending up on the turf quite a bit although many of the miscues happened when the second and third team squads were in there.

The Baltimore Ravens had a scout checking out practice, the latest NFL team to send a rep to a Yale practice.