North Carolina State University Athletics
Football Preseason Diary, Day Nine
8/15/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 15, 2001
Ahh, the sound of shoulder pads hitting shoulder pads. What a great way to start out a Wednesday morning. The guys had a good, solid practice this morning (according to the head coach) and did some good solid hitting. They're still wearing shorts (because of the heat), but they've got on all of their thigh pads, hip pads, etc. They've also donned knee braces for the contact work.
It's always interesting to watch the board drills and tackling drills. You all know about board drills, don't you? There's a board on the ground and an offensive guy stands at one end of the board, one foot on either side and a defensive guy faces him on the other end of the board. When the whistle blows, they meet in the middle and try to drive each other back off the board. The running backs and tight ends go against the linebackers, the defensive backs go against the wideouts and the linemen go against each other. It's hard to choose which group to check out because the guys get pretty feisty on the boards. It's vintage Chuck Amato football.
I'm a little late getting this entry in tonight, but it's 9:15 and I just left the field. The guys are still out there running a couple of gassers before they head in for some meetings and then home to bed. They're going to be in full uniform tomorrow - Coach wants to get some goalline work done. He said that today's workouts were very competitive and I would agree with him. There is a lot of pride among the offensive and defensive players about who is winning each drill. I think everybody knows that #44 likes to talk a lot during practice, but he's not the only one. Our young starting quarterback doesn't mind letting the defense know when the offense has made them look bad!
I'm really impressed with the upgraded speed of our defensive line. That became real obvious real quickly today.
And by the way, did anyone see the piece on WRAL tonight at 6:00 about the new scoreboard? Hopefully they'll show it again at 11 - it's worth checking out if you haven't seen it in person yet.
