Spring practice is done for the Bears and here's a few of one man's observations:

— Maybe the most obvious thing was the improvement of Ross Brown. Well, maybe "improvement" isn't the best word, because the guy had been pretty good in his limited role in years past. It's just more in the spotlight now and he's getting some consistent work which actually allows him to get into some sort of rhythm. In two seasons that he's played, he's averaged 6.2 yards on 90 carries. That's not just horrible. The downside to Ross is he's tiny and a lot of people automatically assume that equals durability problems. Can he handle the constant pounding of being the featured back for an entire season? We'll see ... I think. The coaching staff is quick to reiterate that help is on the way. How much of it is help is to be determined, I guess. I guess it's still entirely possible that one of the freshmen could come in during the fall and quickly work his way into a pretty prominent role. This doesn't seem one of those clear-cut cases where the incumbent is going to be the man ...

— Unlike the QB spot. I overheard one observer say "Even Joe Willie Namath couldn't come in here and take his spot," speaking of sophomore-to-be Nathan Brown and how happy the coaches are with his play. Robby Park has looked pretty good, particularly when you take into consideration the two years he took off for his mission trip, but Brown has looked that much better. He may not have done anything just overly spectacular during the spring, but he didn't do anything spectacularly bad. And, he didn't look much different than he did at the end of last season. With that time away from live game action, it's not unusual to expect guys to come out a little rusty in the spring and not look as fluid as they did at the previous season's end – when they were playing at their highest level. Not much in the way of dropoff for Mr. Brown.

— Aaron Fairooz gets all the love, and deservedly so, but I expect big, big things out of Che Jones next season. He looks a step faster than everybody else, and looks like he spends about 14 hours a day in the weight room. It's pretty amazing that he's bulked up as much as he has since his high school days and actually gained speed in the process.

— I'm pretty sure Charles Twilley will be able to fill Austin Cade's shoes just fine. He has that same quality of seemingly loving nothing more than dropping the head and plowing through half a defense. That's a good thing to have in a receiving TE. As for the blocking, well, I won't pretend to have paid any attention to that whatsoever.

— That first-team defense is something else. Of course they're going to look good going against the second-team offense, but they'd probably look just fine against most people's first-string offenses too. That's an extremely hoss set of DEs, the linebackers are top notch and the secondary was going to be pretty good with Jasper Johnson snapping people like twigs and two-year starters Ahmad Brown and Dathan Johnson patrolling the corners. Well, Dathan's been hurt and transfer Tristan Jackson has stepped in and he looks like the real deal. If Jack Bailey or somebody else emerges at the other safety spot and Gerald Norman keeps improving like he did during the course of last season, there won't be a lot of holes in that secondary, either.

— One person not roaming around back there is Stephen Green. After being all-everything at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock and going on to North Carolina, Green didn't find things to his liking and returned home and suited up for the Bears last season. He didn't do much, and I'm not sure that he was ever really in the good graces of the coaches. I mistakingly got pretty giddy when I first got the news of him coming here, and Conque was pretty darn excited, too ... "Now that's what a D-I corner should look like, right there." Well, for one reason or another that one didn't quite pan out and now he's no longer with the Bears.

— Lane Freiwald should be a Fite Nite staple for the next several years. That guy can throw a pretty mean looking haymaker. I think, given half the chance, he might be able to put that gargantuan fist of his right through somebody's helmet. He was just about ready, and in good position, to end Josh Fay's life right there in front of the crowd last Friday. Fortunately, Fay's roommate Thad Waters ran out there like a madman and started the breakup process, then everybody else got involved. You probably don't want teammates out there beating each other down, but hey at least they're intense and getting after it. I don't worry too much about a little fight in football practice. It's a violent, testosterone-driven sport where you repeatedly crash into other people as hard and often as possible. It's pretty conducive to a throwdown. I'd be much more upset over fights in the locker room or at somebody's house or at a strip club than on the field. Not that I necessarily condone the on-field fighting, I just don't think it's the end of the world. Keep it in check, punish those responsible (like the UCA staff did – keeping those guys out the rest of the scrimmage and giving them a good berating), make them feel like jackasses and move along. People – especially in the media – love to sensationalize a good fight, but in this case it's an isolated incident. So, no big deal to me.

— Ryan Taylor is a better linebacker than photographer.