The action and the trash-talking among the Tigers picked up at today’s practice. The team went through several position drills during the morning, including a spirited 11-on-11 competition.

One particular sequence in practice saw QB Chase Daniel hook up with WR Jared Perry on a long touchdown. Later, though, Daniel had a pass batted down by FS William Moore near the line of scrimmage, and ‘Willy Mo’ let Daniel know . . . “Yeah, that just happened.”

Today marked only the third practice of camp, but Moore looks impressive. The Tigers spent a portion of the practice working on their nickel package. The defense had safety Del Howard as an extra defensive back on the field and lined up Moore on the line of scrimmage on nearly every play. Sometimes he dropped back and sometimes he blitzed, but he was routinely making his presence felt.

“When we get into the nickel, we like to get Willy Mo down where we can do a lot of things with him,” MU coach Gary Pinkel said. ”I’m so proud of him. I was talking to a friend the other day about how he’s matured and developed into a heck of a player. He’s a remarkable athlete, he’s got great speed and he weights 230 pounds. There’s just not too many people like him.”

Perry, who fell out of the WR rotation last season after a nice freshman year, made a couple of nice catches, including the long TD from Daniel. Perry is getting an opportunity with Danario Alexander out with injury. Some talented freshmen are also getting a chance. They include Gahn McGaffie, Wes Kemp (DeSmet), Kip Edwards, Robert Steeples (DeSmet), Jerrell Jackson and Terry Dennis.

“All of those freshmen receivers, it’s going to be interesting to see how that sorts out,” Pinkel said. “We’ll get Denario back, which is good. But our depth, we had as good of depth last year as we’ve ever had . . . that I’ve ever had as a coach. That being said, a couple of those young receivers I think have the potential to play this year, but we’ll have to see how it sorts out.”

Asked if young receivers today were coming to camp better equipped, Pinkel said: “They were here all summer, learning from the veteran players. Most of the things we’re doing out here, they’ve been through a lot of it. Maybe not the details of it, but the basics. I think it’s also recruiting a higher level player. They’re expectation levels are different. They know they have a great opportunity here.”

Meanwhile at tight end, Chase Coffman is flying solo, getting all the reps with the first-string offense. The past few years, Coffman either split time with Martin Rucker or the team ran two-tight end sets. Now that Rucker is in the NFL (with the Cleveland Browns), Coffman is the focal point.

“(Rucker) was there to push me a lot last year,” Coffman said. “But this year, it’s just something I’ve got to do on my own. Coach (Bruce) Walker will help me a lot with that and the rest of the offense will help push me. But that’s something I’ve got to do on my own, light that fire under myself and tell myself that I’m going to go out there and make every catch that comes my way.”

Talking about Coffman minus Rucker this season, Pinkel said: “They were just so good for each other. Ruck and Coffman, they had great respect for one another. They always secretly competed against one another. They did because they’re competitors. I think Chase kind of sees himself this year in a position where he’ll get the maximum number of reps, without question. We still have to watch what we do because of the tempo of our offense, but I think he’s real excited about that. It’s kind of his turn to be a leader and also be a focal point of the offense.”

Daniel on Coffman: “He’s been more vocal. He’s going to be a bigger aspect of our offense. We’re going to use him a lot more. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has 100 catches. We’re going to spread it around also (because) we know that’s he’s going to get double-coverage. He’s one of the better Big 12 tight ends, so we’ve got to use him to our advantage.”

TE Junior Jon Gissinger is working with the second string. Could he give the Tigers the option of lining up with two tight ends? Perhaps, but Gissinger is more of a blocking TE.

“We’re not sure how it’s going to happen, how that will come down,” Pinkel said. “Gissinger is the backup right now. We have two freshmen that are really good players. In our offense, there’s so many multiple things you can do. Last couple of years, we just wanted to get (Coffman and Rucker) on the field at the same time.”

QB Jimmy Costello took reps with the 3rd team offense today, and Blaine Gabbert (Parkway West) also ran some plays in the 11-on-11 drill. Gabbert looked so-so, misfiring on a few attempts. At one point, Daniel was seen instructing Gabbert on operating in the pocket and getting rid of the ball.

Asked after practice what he wanted to see from Gabbert, Pinkel said: “You look for him to mature and get better. I think one of the first things for any young quarterback is to protect the football and not take sacks . . . get the quarterback-center exchange. Can he manage the game? Before you throw a ball, you try to avoid sacks and there are many ways you do that. Just make good decisions. The bottom line is you can’t throw it to the other guy. People might think that might be real easy to do, it’s not easy to do when you’ve got guys like Ziggy Hood coming at you, and Stryker Sulak and Willy Mo. So, that’s kind of what you want to see. You want to see that maturity to be able to handle that. That’s ultimately the first step to saying, ‘OK, you can go out and you’re in position to help us play. Now throw the football.’”

All of the Tiger coaches were wearing T-shirts today that read: “Great Special Forces” on the front . . . and “Win the Kicking Game” on the back.

The shirts didn’t help that much. Jeff Wolfert, an outstanding kicker by all accounts, missed several short-distance kicks in practice. Pinkel was also disappointed with the long-snapping. Currently, linebacker Brock Chrisopher leads a group of players vying for that job.

“Our snappers have to be more consistent . . . our punters are all over the place getting the ball,” he said. “There’s no timing and it just doesn’t work. I think there’s a couple of guys that are competing. Brock Christopher is doing a good job. A couple of the young players I think are really high potential. So when we get that settled, that will help our punting game a little bit.”

Regarding today’s practice as a whole, Pinkel said: “I thought overall it was a good practice. We got better as a team. I liked the enthusiasm. I though the younger players were starting to figure it out, just how we do things. That’s the challenge, always getting them to understand the tempo of each drill . . . learn how to finish. Young players don’t know that and they have to learn it. Also, learn the intensity of each drill and doing things write. I thought we made a little progress there. Our challenge is to get our backup players on both sides of theball ready to play. Obviously we want to improve on the 1s on boths sides. but the backup players, it’s critical for our success. There are some good athletes; we just have to work at it.”

- Jeremy Rutherford