Signs of the early morning sun creep across the KU practice fields as the Jayhawks go through stretching Wednesday morning.

Signs of the early morning sun creep across the KU practice fields as the Jayhawks go through stretching Wednesday morning.

It was business as usual on the practice field for the Kansas University football team this morning.

But a person standing on the sidelines watching made this morning’s session unique.

T.J. Millweard, a red-shirt freshman quarterback at UCLA who has decided to leave southern California, was in town on an unofficial visit and appears to be considering Kansas as his next destination.

According to reports, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound former three-star QB who ranked as the 23rd best quarterback in the country in the 2012 recruiting class, has decided to leave UCLA to finish his career at a school closer to his hometown. Millweard went to high school in Fort Worth, Texas, but also lived in Kansas City for some of his life and has family members with ties to this area.

Millweard sat out the 2012 season and will have to sit out the 2013 season after transferring. Wherever he ends up, he’ll have three years of eligibility remaining following the transfer year.

Here are a couple of recent updates on his decision to leave UCLA:

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20130819/quarterback-tj-millweard-granted-release-from-ucla-intends-to-transfer-closer-to-home

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-tj-millweard-ucla-football-20130819,0,2323656.story#axzz2ccCYP5ex

Here’s a look at the rest of what caught my eye at Wednesday morning’s practice:

• Found myself looking over the offensive line again and, although we’ve talked a lot about Pearce Slater and Zach Fondal, I want to give Brian Beckmann and Joey Bloomfield their due, as well. Those two young guys have legit size and look to be in very good shape. It’s hard to know how much they will impact the O-Line in 2013, but you can bet that both are a big part of KU’s suddenly bright future on the offensive line.

• I noticed that newly named scholarship athlete Connor Embree, a wide receiver last season and in the mix for kick return duties this season, spent most of the morning working with the running backs. Embree is listed with the third string at the F position behind Tony Pierson and Brandon Bourbon, so it makes sense that he would be over there working with Bourbon, who continues to look really sharp as camp comes to a close.

• Both the running backs and wide receivers spent some significant time working on getting off of press coverage at the line of scrimmage today. Guys were beat up with pads as they broke out of their stances and were taught to use their arms to keep defenders’ bodies, hands and arms off of them as they tried to get into their routes.

KU assistant Scott Vestal works with the defensive backs during a drill Wednesday morning.

• With just one more practice session to view remaining before KU goes into preparation for the upcoming season mode, I thought it would be wrong if I didn’t point out how much I enjoy how many of these coaches get down and work with their players during drills. Clint Bowen, Buddy Wyatt, Scott Holsopple, Ron Powlus, Scott Vestal, Jeff Blasko and several others, put all they’ve got into making these guys better every day. Sometimes, especially with Bowen, it looks like they could still be out there playing. It remains to be seen how much all of this work will pay off but there’s no question that this football team and the entire coaching staff have worked their butts off this offseason to try to get things turned around.

No media availability tomorrow, as that’s faculty appreciation day. Then, we’ll wrap things up Friday morning with one more look at the team on the field. After that, the countdown to Sept. 7 can officially begin.