Said, seen and read on Friday

Heard some classics Friday from coaches Bradley Dale Peveto and Todd Cooley.

Peveto, speaking to the team at the end of a grueling practice that lasted nearly three hours in the morning steam before wrapping up at 12:30 in the lunch hour, was in gear.

Speaking about the six "perfect 40s" he made the Demons run at the end of the workout, he said it was all about toughness and discipline.

"Let me tell you sumpthin', you can't order that over the internet. You gotta earn it. You gotta develop it. It's got to become a way of life for our football team, and if we do, we can't be stopped."

Then, later in his remarks, he began to review the afternoon's activities after the first full-contact practice of fall camp.

"Here's what you got. You got a nice afternoon. People fly to Arizona to spas, and pay a lot of money. We gonna give it to you for FREE!" (At this point, Cooley, standing behind the circle of players, couldn't help but grin.)

"You get lunch from 1-2. You get treatments from 2-3. From 3-3:30, the offense lifts and the defense gets in the ice-cold pools. Then we switch it and the offense gets in the ice-cold pools. Then from 4-4:30 it's the Issues meeting and you get to hear a great speaker. ... People pay a lot of money at spas for the stuff you're getting this afternoon, men!"

Cooley did his part later, talking to me about his hopes for the offense to follow Friday's good performance with two more steps forward Saturday. It wasn't original but it fit great.

"Can we put two practices back-to-back? Can we put three back-to-back-to-back? If we do, then we'll be cooking with grease."

Friday was also the debut of the Demons' Oklahoma drill. It's a classic football test used at all levels. Just Wednesday night, I was watching the HBO show "Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Cincinnati Bengals" and saw the Bengals doing the drill.

At Camp Peve, the Demons set up four different stations so the action was non-stop and flowing like dominos falling. There's a tailback, taking a handoff from a quarterback right behind center. The center blocks a nosetackle. The running back tries to knife by the defender, but all the action takes place in a corridor about three yards wide, defined by blocking dummies. If the ballcarrier stays inside the dummies and gets past them, the offense wins.

As Peveto said when he called the team together before the drill, "it's mano y mano, guys!"

The four stations were set up according to size and position so there were not any mismatches.

The defense dominated the first round, winning three of the four battles, and went up 5-3 after two rounds. Then the offense did not lose again, winning an amazing 17 straight (only one was a close call). The reward: watching the defense do up-downs for a minute.

Cautioned offensive line coach Jeremy Offutt to the Purple Strike: "win with dignity, guys!" They did.

Spotted earlier Friday morning in the newspaper ...

Great Media Day coverage in the Shreveport Times from Kelly Morris ...

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090814/SPORTS02/908140342/It-s-crunch-time-for-Demons

... and Roy Lang III

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090814/SPORTS0405/908140323/1001/SPORTS

Doug Ireland, SID