Bowling Green State University Athletics
Gregg Brandon Training Camp Blog
August 15, 2005 | Football
Aug. 15, 2005
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - Head coach Gregg Brandon and the BGSU football Falcons are preparing for the 2005 season. Coach Brandon took a few minutes from his busy schedule to share some thoughts on the team's practices to date, as well as a few other subjects. For a listing of past blog entries, click here.
The first week of camp is complete and right now we're trying to get through the daily grind. It's tough for two to three weeks when your focus is football, football, football from sun up till late at night. It's important that we stay mentally fresh and as a coach that presents a great challenge. I think physically we are in the best shape we have ever been in and I attribute that to the leadership of Aaron Hillmann (BGSU strength coach) and a great work ethic by our players.
When we started camp, I said that we have enough good players to win football games, a tremendous work ethic, and a great coaching staff that has enjoyed continuity, particularly on offense, plus the addition of John Lovett and D.J. Durkin on defense has been a tremendous positive. The only thing we lack, and that is what we do in camp, is develop team chemistry. If you add those four elements up we can have a great season. The first three only give us a chance. If we don't have great chemistry, then we will struggle. Regardless of the sport, a lot of teams have great talent, but because of a lack of chemistry they can't win enough games to call the season a success.
Last year, I had a chance to talk to Bob Stoops from Oklahoma about how they ran their training camp and he told me they ran a 120-play scrimmage on the first day they could wear pads (five days after the start of camp). I asked him if his team was ready to do that so early and he said, no, but we needed to find out which of our young kids can play. The other thing about that is if you get a kid nicked, you've got three weeks to get them healthy.
The main reason we had a scrimmage on our third day in pads is that I wanted to find out some things about this football team early. It's nice to have one under our belt. It's the best way to evaluate our personnel, but you can't do it every day because the risk is too great.
Defensively, we are really stressing team defense. If you have to be in a particular gap, it's the player's responsibility to get there. Coach Lovett did not have the benefit of being with the team this spring, so this time is critical as he evaluates players. We have been moving a a few players around, taking a defensive back and putting them at linebacker, or putting a linebacker and making them a defensive end. It's important in this scheme that we not overwhelm the players and really concentrate on doing a few things really well, as opposed to trying to give them too much to learn. We need to have our technique down and assignments down before we move on.
I get asked a lot about our receivers and who is going to step in fill the shoes of guys like Cole Magner, James Hawkins or Cornelius McGrady. While they were certainly integral to our success, I'm confident that we have a number of kids who are ready to step in and contribute. We really like the effort that we have gotten from guys like Marques Parks and Corey Partridge. They had a great spring and they have followed that up with an outstanding camp. Another kid who I really have been impressed with is Matt Emans, a walk-on from Bowling Green. He's big and strong and has great hands and is an excellent blocker.
Our depth is the best it has ever been in terms of incoming freshmen. My first few years here, we had to burn a lot of redshirts because we simply needed the best players to play. As far as some of the new guys who may play this year, we moved Bobby Thomas from defensive back to running back. I saw the first time he carried the ball that he was a running back, but we thought we needed help on the defensive side of the ball. He has a good chance at playing, especially on special teams. Defensively, Antonio Smith is a cornerback who could end up playing right away. I'm really pleased with the way our newcomers are playing in the defensive backfield. While our goal right now is to hold on to the redshirt year for most of these guys, the reality is we won't know until camp is complete and we can evaluate where we are health-wise.
The month of September will provide an interesting challenge for us. We are one of only three teams in the country that won't play a home game until October (Fla. International and Louisiana Tech) and we have a conference road game sandwiched around two high-profile television games. Last week, a reporter asked me something to the effect of 'had we ever played this tough a non-conference schedule with games at Wisconsin and Boise State' and I had to remind him that we played at Purdue and Ohio State a couple of years ago. The truth is, those type of games are great for our fans and it gives our kids a chance to play in some of the best environments in college football on a national stage. However, the game at Ball State is the only game that is going to help us achieve our goals which are to win the MAC's East Division, play for a conference championship and earn one of the league's two bowl bids. The Cardinals are a tough team at home and you can bet in early September their fan base will be out in full force and we'll get their best shot. We have to take it one week at a time and not get caught up in hype and national rankings because all of that can disappear very quickly.
I hope you will get a chance to come out this Saturday (August 20) to our next scrimmage. If you haven't already done so, please consider purchasing season tickets and joining our Falcon Club. Members of our athletic department staff will be available to assist you. The scrimmage is from 4 to 6 p.m., with our end zone pavilion open at 5 p.m. We hope to see you there!
