West Point - It was a busy day around Michie Stadium on Monday as the Army football team officially began its second preseason camp under head coach Rich Ellerson.
While the morning was filled with organizational meetings and the club’s annual Media Day gathering, Ellerson put his club through a briskly paced two-hour workout in helmets and shorts during the afternoon hours.
The entire team began the session within the cozy confines of Foley Athletic Center before Army’s defense peeled off to the newly installed field turf playing surface of Howze Field for the workout’s final hour.
"I was happy with the way things went today," explained Ellerson afterwards. "This didn’t resemble a football practice because it’s hard to practice football in helmets and shorts. But you can still accomplish an awful lot in this type of environment and I thought we did that today."
"Our whole mind-set is to be healthy and ready to go when we put the pads on for the first time on Friday. We’ll continue to work on installation of our offense and defense the next couple of days, and then back off things a bit and work on our kicking game a bit on Thursday. By the time we put pads on Friday, we should have the majority of our offense and defense installed."
Monday’s workout included positional work before the offensive and defensive units separated for a heavy dose of installation. Just under 150 players dressed out in helmets and shorts for the initial workout, with 18 returning starters (seven on offense, eight on defense and three on special teams) and 65 freshmen included in the group. While the installation period was very familiar to the veterans, those same seasoned returnees made certain to take the time to properly mentor the newcomers to Army’s program throughout the day.
"We take great pride in teaching the younger players because they are not only the future of this program but they could play a role for us this year," explained senior defensive tackle Mike Gann. "Bringing them into the culture and letting them know they are a part of something is really important. They have to learn a lot of things very quickly. The more time that we take with them on the fundamentals now that we’re in a slow practice environment, the more they’ll use them when we get in a faster tempo environment."
Senior free safety Donovan Travis echoed the thoughts of his teammate.
"We have a lot of new ‘brothers’ here and we have to get them integrated with this team and our values," offered Travis. "We’ve got to bring them along and catch them up to speed with where we’re at now."
The Black Knights will conduct similar workouts in shorts and helmets Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week before donning full pads for the first time on Friday.
"Like Coach (Ellerson) said, this is going to be the lightest practice all year," Gann said. "We got to learn a lot of things. I got to teach some of the young guys a few things. They’re excited and they have to pick those things up. But overall the energy was just hyped. Everyone was glad to be back. The defense wanted to fly around but Coach had to hold us back a little bit. We had a high energy level today."
"It was great," Travis gushed. "It feels real good to return so many players on defense. We are real comfortable with each other. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We hope to use that to our advantage and win some games this year. I’m so excited about this year that I don’t want to go through camp, I just want to play the games right now. But we need to get better. We need to get a lot better. We’re very hungry."
Monday also saw the first official preseason practice for projected starting fullback Jared Hassin. Hassin sat out last season after transferring from Air Force. While he spent last fall with the scout team, Monday served as a milestone of sorts for the Black Knights’ new backfield weapon.
"It was great to be a part of this today," Hassin stated. "The whole experience was a culmination of a journey that began in high school, continued at the Air Force and then here last fall. This is kind of the first time that I can finally say, ‘Hey, I’m a part of this team and I’m going to be a contributor.’"
Tuesday’s workout will begin at 2:30 p.m. and is open to the public. The team is expected to work out both in Foley Athletic Center and Howze Field.
Army opens its 121st season of intercollegiate competition on Saturday, Sept. 4th when the Black Knights visit Eastern Michigan at 7 p.m. Army begins its home slate the following week, hosting Hawaii (Sept. 11).
