MOBILE, Ala. – The “dog days” of August have arrived on the calendar — the heat index reached 100 degrees in Mobile Wednesday morning — but that didn’t prevent the University of South Alabama football team from taking part in drills on the opening day of preseason camp at the practice fields on campus.
Even though, the weather would force the Jaguars to take a 10-minute break to cool down midway through the morning, head coach Joey Jones made sure his team knew at the end of the day that heat-related issues can’t slow USA down as it prepares for its third season of competition.
“It was very hot, but I told the team that we have to find a way to work through it. We have to come out with the attitude that we are going to get work done,” he stated. “And we have to be smart as coaches and back off of it at times and be smart about how we structure our practice. But it was a good day, and we had good effort.”
“The first day went how I expected it would. We were tired and hot, but we had to push through it,” added junior Anthony Taylor. “The coaches put us in some situations where we had to think when we were tired, just like we have to do in the games. But the first day was pretty good, and I think we will get better looking down the road.”
In fact, the top two quarterbacks on the preseason depth chart as camp begins — C.J. Bennett and Myles Gibbon — felt that work done over the summer helped the Jags battle through the conditions.
“Everyone was excited to get out here,” the former said. “We had one of our best summers as a team. I thought the tempo was pretty good for the first day of practice, especially with this heat. We looked pretty good. You always have the first-day kinks, but we’ll just keep working.”
“We came out, and it felt like we had been out here for a few days already,” added the latter. “We were smooth, people knew where to go and the guys who have been here showed the freshmen coming in exactly what to do right away so we didn’t have to waste time telling them.
“I can tell right away how much smoother it is with guys I threw with in the summer,” Gibbon continued. “Guys like Bryant [Lavender], Greg [Hollinger] and freshman like Anthony [Ingram] — we’re comfortable with them already, so it feels good being out here knowing we did that work before.”
Jones agreed after the workout that he could see the results of offseason conditioning. “We look better out there – we look bigger and faster. Coach [Justin] Schwind did a heck of a job with the offseason program,” he commented. “There is no doubt that we are bigger. I think some of the linemen are starting to look better, as well as the linebackers. That is good, but so is the mental side. You can just see they are comfortable by what they’re doing; the freshmen and new guys’ eyes were like saucers, but the older guys know what is going on.
“That maturity and experience is something that we have on this team now, and these older guys can start coaching these younger guys.”
Practice opened with punt team work with the offensive and defensive lines doing drills in each end zone. During more than 50 minutes of individual and group work afterwards, quarterbacks threw with tight ends first, then wide receivers and running backs last. The period also included running backs working behind the offensive line.
The session moved to 20 minutes of 7-on-7 skeleton passing drills before a half-hour team period. The offensive line worked on blitz pick-ups against the defense prior to a second special teams period that included kick and punt coverage drills.
While Jones is pleased with how the Jaguars looked on day one of preseason practice, he knows the staff will gain a lot more knowledge of what the players are capable of when they put full pads on. The first is scheduled to take place Monday after the program’s first off day of camp.
“We’ll find out more about their explosion once we get the pads on, but as far as quickness their feet look better and we just look better physically,” he said. “I told them a couple of weeks ago that all the weight room stuff and offseason conditioning has to transfer to the field. Just because you look better doesn’t mean you are a better football player. If you’re stronger you have to play stronger; if you’re faster you have to play faster.”
USA will practice Thursday beginning at 6:15 a.m. on campus.
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
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