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Senior Bowl Live Blog: Day 4

MOBILE, Ala. – It’s the last day of true practice here at the 2011 Senior Bowl. North team is out on the field, but without pads. They are just wearing helmets, shorts and jerseys.

Friday will be a walk-through, but we will have our first ever “Faithful Friday” of the 2011 offseason. What does that entail you might wonder? We’ll have a LIVE chat after the walk-throughs where we can answer your questions.

Stay tuned for more details on the chat, and start thinking of your questions.

It’s time for North practice, let’s go…
Offense begins the day working on red zone combo routes against air. Now it’s on to punt team work.

By the way, there’s definitely a different look and feel to today’s practice. A lot of NFL personnel has left town already, reporters too. There’s also an entire bleacher full of students “ooohing” and “ahhing” as practice goes on.

Not a bad field trip – I’d say.

It’s red zone team period, and Oregon LB Casey Matthews comes up with INT on Iowa QB Ricky Stanzi. Plays later, UNC Kendric Burney picked off Washington QB Jake Locker too. Another great diving INT from Burney, who had one on Monday as well.

Stanzi responds with a 6-yard TD pass to Boise State WR Titus Young, who showed great body awareness tapping both feet in the end zone before being pushed out of bounds. College game is one foot down, Young already has the pro rules down, two feet in bounds equals a score.

More special teams work being done now, kickoff work is the focus.

Now it’s on to 7-on-7 work, where Burney just intercepted Stanzi by cutting in front of receiver. Excellent route recognition and anticipation by the Tar Heel.

Starting to be the Kendric Burney show today, he steps in front of Colin Kaepernick’s slant intended for SDSU WR Vincent Brown, but drops the INT. Burney reacts by doing a set of pushups as a self-imposed penalty for the drop.

I’ll say it right now, hope to see Locker run the 40 at the combine. During regular team period he tucked the ball and ran up the middle of the field in a dash. The speed was impressive.

Colin Kaepernick lofts nice touch pass while moving to his right finding Wisconsin TE Lance Kendricks, who was tighly covered. Just barely got it in there, but the Nevada QB showed confidence in making that throw. Not everyone attemps to throw to covered targets, he did, but threw to where only Hendricks could make the play.

It’s two-minute offense time, Kaepernick doing a nice job of moving down the field. Showed excellent timing by firing two out patterns to receivers before they broke towards the sideline.

That’s it for practice, stay tuned.

1:45 PM Update

Red zone offense is up for first for South practice, and so far two impressive TD catches have been made by Hawaii WR Greg Salas and Miami WR Leonard Hankerson. Both made their catches over defenders with tight coverage.

Not a bad way to start the afternoon.

We profiled the QBs yesterday, including all three South QBs, who grew up nearby in the state of Texas. You can definitely hear the accent of their voiced when barking out the snap cadence.

Courtney Smith, S. Alabama WR has two catches in team period so far. Kentucky RB Derrick Locke has looked good on a few outside runs as well.

Hard to get singled out during red zone work for a defensive line (especially when pads aren’t being worn) but Clemson DT Jarvis Jenkins batted a pass at the line of scrimmage.

That appears to be it for the South practice, Bills coaching staff looks to be keeping players fresh for Saturday.

We’ll see if that pays off.

Stay tuned for more on 49ers.com.

For all of your Senior Bowl coverage, check out our Senior Bowl Central page.