North Carolina State University Athletics
2005 Preseason Diary, Day Four
8/5/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 5, 2005
I saw something I thought I'd never see at the Wolfpack's opening practice: Coach Amato let the team leave the field without doing conditioning work. No gassers, no perfect play - when he broke the team huddle at the end, he told them they were done. As you can imagine, a loud cheer went up. "We love you, Chuck!" was yelled by several players.
Don't start thinking that Coach Amato has gone soft. Not only had practice run long, but dinner was waiting and the team still had a couple of hours of meetings left, even though they didn't leave the field until after 8:00 p.m. and had been out there since before 5:00 p.m.
The first day of practice is the only one all year that is open to the media, and there was a good crowd. One reporter asked me if all of our non-contact work was as physical as today's. Since the guys are in shorts and shoulder pads, there is no tackling, but it's hard to keep them from at least running into each other as hard as they can - these guys have been waiting to do this for a LONG time.
Just like everybody, I was interested to see how the freshman running backs looked. In inside drill, Toney Baker showed some shifty moves and Andre Brown and Jamelle Eugene had some big runs as well. But Reggie Davis, Darrell Blackman and Bobby Washington didn't look too shabby either. Looks like their will be plenty of guys to carry the ball in the "TREST-coast offense".
On defense, J.J. Jones caused a fumble and brought it back for a touchdown and Mario Williams spent so much time in the backfield, he looked like he should have been in a red jersey.
Jay Davis showed unbelieveable speed, when he snuck out the side gate at the end of practice to avoid the throng of media that was waiting for him. Lesson learned - my staff can't take their eyes off of #10 this season!
Gerard Miller, who redshirted last season on the defensive line started camp off with the offense, but that was the only big position change. Stephen Tulloch and John Dunlap, who both had surgery in the offseason, went full-speed today.
Under every player's jersey is a shirt that exhibits the theme for this year's team. As you know, each year, the coaches meet at "Hideaway" and come up with what they feel should be the key theme for the upcoming season. This year, the theme is TRUST. Coach Amato says that that trust involves everybody in the entire program. The players must trust each other, the coaches must trust each other, the players must trust the coaches, the coaches must trust the players, the players and coaches need to trust the support staff, the fans needs to trust in the program. "It's a community trust," Amato said.
It will be late tonight when the players leave the Murphy Center, probably not too long before their 11 p.m. curfew, and they'll be back over there by early tomorrow morning. Tomorrow's practice will be in the evening, so there will be a day full of lifting and meetings.
