Day One Of Practice In The Books
The first day of practice for the South Alabama football team is in the books as they begin their four week march towards their first game against Southern Utah on August 29.
A thunderstorm pushed through prior to the beginning of practice to cool it off for the players first day on the practice fields. Most notably about the practice is that they came out ready to play mentally and physically. Quarterbacks and receivers appeared to be on the same page.
Ross Metheny spoke to AL.com saying, “Everyone was kind of itching to get back out there after all the workouts we had over the summer and the 7-on-7 sessions and that sort of thing. We were eager to get coached. You can only do so much when you are coaching yourselves and policing yourselves and that kind of thing. I thought today we brought a lot of good energy. The challenge is going to be keeping that energy level where it was the rest of camp and not taper off. I think we’ll do a good job of that.”
“I think offensively we played with good tempo today and there’s a lot of excitement,” he continued. “Some guys had some mental errors and things like that but we’ll go back and watch the film tomorrow and fix it and learn from it and get better and get back after it again tomorrow.”
Head coach Joey Jones said that the offensive execution was very good for a first day of practice. He noted that normally early practices are marked with lots of dropped balls and fumbles. However, Jones noted that until they don their full pads it really doesn’t mean that much. Though the players are ready to put on their full compliment of padding to being proving themselves and hit someone.
Transfer Danny Woodson Jr. is participating with the team in preseason drills while they wait on word from the NCAA on their petition for early eligibility. He was among a handful of players that Coach Jones mentioned as standouts.
Possibly the best early word is that Coach Jones believes that there is more leadership this season from players who have been around the program for years now and know what they are in for this season. The struggles they went through last season is still fresh on their minds and will work hard to better themselves.
The Jags will hit the practice fields on Friday and Saturday at 6:30pm, however they are closed to the public.