North Carolina State University Athletics
Patrick Thomas Mini-Camp Diary
4/29/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 29, 2005
Patrick's voice was tired on Friday night when he called in with his daily diary from mini-camp, but he sounded confident after his first day of practice.
"I got up early and was on the bus at 6:20 to go to the stadium. We ate breakfast and then had meetings afterwards. They warned us yesterday that the rookies should get taped before the meetings, because if you're getting taped and a vet comes in, the rookies get pushed out of the way. So I followed their advice and got taped before the meetings.
We started practice at 10:15, no pads, just helmets. It was cool, but at first I felt like I didn't know what I was doing. We did team against the offense, and even though the speed wasn't that different from what I'm used to, I only had about 3-5 seconds to try to think about what I had learned on the chalkboard and do it on the field. They expect us to learn fast - they put in five new plays before this morning's practice. At first I felt lost and didn't think I had done too well. But I watched the tape after practice and didn't do as bad as I thought.
After lunch, we met again and they put in five more plays before the afternoon practice. That's 10 plays in a day, which is a lot. We practiced for about an hour and a half this afternoon and then had more meetings with everybody. The rookies had to stay longer to get some extra work in.
I think I did alright today. I'm not confident yet, but I think I'm learning fast - I felt like I picked things up pretty fast once I got into it.
I've got a lot of studying to do tonight. If they put in 10 more plays tomorrow, I've got to make sure the stuff that was new today is old tomorrow. I want to make sure I know it.
But all-in-all, it just feels good to be a Jaguar. Now I gotta go study.
