After a short downpour of insane potential flooding proportions, the weather cleared just in time for Rich Rodriguez to address the media and for Michigan to conduct yet another football practice in preparation for the season and the opener against Western Michigan.

IT DIDN'T LOOK LIKE THIS BUT WAS HOPING FOR A CANOE ANYWAY:

Here are some thoughts and observations from Thursday, which is admittedly a little bit light:

Among those at practice: Athletic director Bill Martin and Frank Pomarico, the father of walk-on long snapper Tom Pomarico. Rodriguez said in pre-practice interviews that Pomarico had become the first-team long snapper.

Field goal competition kicks, although without officials out there Thursday it was tough to tell if some of the kicks were good or not: Jason Olesnavage - good from 23, 29 and 42 yards. Brendan Gibbons - good from 23, missed 37 and 47 yards wide left. Kris Pauloski - good from 20 and 30, wide right from 41 yards. Bryan Wright - good from 23, tipped and no good from 37 yards.

Rodriguez said before practice he envisions this competition going on for a while.

Speaking of Wright, punter depth isn't an issue. Wright boomed a 70-yard punt - on the run - during practice. It was followed with Zoltan Mesko shanking one, but Mesko is one of the best punters in the country. Mesko, Rodriguez said, is also on track to be the starting holder.

The running backs were doing a pretty cool drill - one I never saw at Notre Dame, but I've also not seen a gauntlet at Michigan, where that's a South Bend staple - where they stand on opposite sides of a heavy bag about the girth of a blue Grimace and push it back and forth to work on blocking technique and potentially, I suppose, knock the other running back over. In all honesty, I wanted to jump in because it looked like that much fun. The pairings: Carlos Brown/Brandon Minor; Michael Shaw/Vincent Smith; Jonny Childers/John McColgan; Michael Cox/O'Neil Swanson.

Today's partial playlist - "Cotton-Eyed Joe" by the Rednex and "A B C," by the Jackson 5. After that, the music got blurry as I got into a conversation with some people. But, we'll leave you with some of this for today, as you picture linemen doing knee-bend walks in sync to "Cotton-Eyed Joe." Yep, that happened Thursday, too...

CAN'T BEAT THE JACKSON FIVE:

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for annarbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or on Twitter @mikerothstein.