UH Football Fan Blog (where's my banner?)

 Subscribe

This fan blog is unaffiliated in any way with the University of Hawaii or the Warriors football team.

Privacy Policy


Thursday, May 08, 2008

Ikaika Alama-Francis Update

The Detroit Lions held their third voluntary off-season practice today, and afterwards Coach Rod Marinelli talked about Ikaika Alama-Francis and how's he's been progressing after suffering a hamstring injury last year.
• Defensive end Ikaika Alama-Francis looks stronger entering his second year.

“Oh, yeah,” Marinelli said. “He’s spent a year in the weight room.”

Marinelli said Alama-Francis wasn’t much heavier, though, and hadn’t lost any speed.

“I call it man-strength,” Marinelli said. “He’s starting to fill out a little bit. His quickness is very good. I mean, he’s running extremely well right now.”

Alama-Francis was a second-round pick last year, a raw project out of Hawaii. He didn’t contribute as much as hoped. Marinelli blamed a lot of that on a pulled hamstring suffered in the middle of the season.

“He was making great progress in practice, and it was his time,” Marinell said. “And he pulled a hammy and it nailed him for about four weeks and slowed him up a little bit.”
From an earlier post-draft article on the Lions' site, Ikaika talked about getting ready for the upcoming season.
“I know that I have a lot of things to work on this offseason,” said Alama-Francis. “Coach (Marinelli) is really taking his time to help me out with those things and I greatly appreciate that. It’s not every day you get one-on-one help from one of the best D-line coaches ever.

“I’ll take everything I have to soak in; Coach Marinelli and Coach Cullen are always coaching me, trying to critique and help me get better. I’m trying to work as hard as I can and hopefully will have a really good year next year.”
Further down the article, he talks about being away from home and adjusting to the NFL lifestyle.

And just a reminder that the Houston Texans (Ryan Grice-Mullins) and Atlanta Falcons (CJ Hawthorne) will be holding minicamps this weekend.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

** Back to the Main Page **