Spaulding Roundup: Bruins Shining In NFL Camps, Finishing Up School

Our yesterday's roundup featuring Brian Price's great start with the Bucs prompted few BNers to gather clips about other Bruins having solid start to their training camps. So thought it would be fun to thread them together in today's frontpage post. We will start with ATV, who has had an "impressive" start with the Titans (HT ucsbruinfan):

"Oh, he's legitimately in the running,'' Fisher said of Verner, a fourth-round pick. "The things that we saw from him, not only prior to the draft, but basically the two weeks of the June OTAs he was fairly impressive.  He came in and made a lot of plays.  He's definitely in the mix there. ''

Well fun to see Jeff Fisher saying nice things about the Bruin great. Of course these days we all have ncie things to say about Fisher. Fisher's Titans, along with the Jaguars, Redskins (with whole bunch of Bruins in that roster), and Bucs are vying for the favorite team title in BN. Speaking of the Redskins, sounds like Terrence Austin is off to a nice start out here in DC (HT Bruins#1):

When McNabb launched a perfectly thrown bomb Monday to rookie wide receiver Terrence Austin, spectators roared and teammates applauded -- each confident they will witness the event again and again this fall. And maybe they will. But McNabb is nothing if not predictable, and as sure as he can nail the bomb, he can also bounce a pass at the feet of a wide-open target, which he also did Monday.

Hope Austin can hang in there.  He is going to need to work his tail off to get in Shanahan's rotation. More after the jump.

Another Bruin - Matt Willis - also has been having a solid start to his NFL camp with Shanahan's old team (HT beeru):

[O]n the field it was wide receiver Matt Willis who stood out.

Willis, who head coach Josh McDaniels has lauded for his offseason work, had a handful of acrobatic grabs, including a diving catch on a long ball from Brady Quinn and a top-shelf body adjustment to reel in a pass from Tebow shortly after in the morning workout.

Wish Willis was utilized more effectively while he was at UCLA. I feel we didn't take full advantage of his talent in the same way Toledo blew it by keeping Drew Bennett too long at backup QB. Good to Willis doing well.

While the Bruins are doing well in training, things are not off to a good start for a prominent Trogan. Per SBN's Jet's blog Mr. Range Rover failed his "conditioning run," after tossing his cookies during rookie minicamp.  Yikes. Not easy I guess when they don't get coddled within the confines of Southern Cal.

Coming back to our Bruin alums, let's end with this great note on Chris Markey on UCLA's official blog:

Chris Markey, who played running back for the Bruins from 2004-2007, has returned to UCLA to finish his final classes for a degree in sociology. Markey has just two classes remaining, a statistics class and sociology class, and is attending the B summer session to complete his coursework.

"I always knew that in life you have to have a backup plan in case football didn't work out," said Markey. "I've always said that there are a million other ways to make money and have a career then play football and this is my first step towards. that. I'm going to finish my degree because if I didn't, my mom would kill me for wasting four years of college."

That is just wonderful news on all fronts. Congrats to Chris and of course all the aforementioned Bruins doing so well beyond their UCLA careers.

GO BRUINS.