Reporting was easy part
Published 6:00 pm Friday, August 3, 2018
Pace picks up with practice today
The McNeese State football team reported for duty Thursday in preparation for its long-awaited first practice of fall camp that began at 9 a.m. today at the A.I. Ratcliff Practice Fields.
The Cowboys will largely work on running through plays and won’t get into full pads until Tuesday morning.
“The first day is always excited,” said McNeese head coach Lance Guidry. “Everybody’s flying around. There will be some busts offensively and defensively.”
Guidry said he doesn’t plan on taking it easy. He wants them ready for action on Sept. 1, so he expects player to be more sore than they expect after the first few days of practice.
“The biggest acclimation for the players is because, during the summer, they’re with the strength coaches, so they’re doing a lot of the weight room activities and other drills on their own,” Guidry said. “But when the full-time football coaches get with them, there’s a different level of intensity in their individual drill work.
“As a player, I don’t think you really understand that when you’re doing your own drills you’re going at your own pace. But as soon as you get in practice and coach is telling you to go and you only get so much rest time, it’s different.”
But that’s important, Guidry said. He emphasized how much he wants to acclimate his players to his up-tempo style of practice, especially the new players.
“It’s going to be different,” he said. “Coming from high school or junior college is different than coming to a four-year college at the Division I level. The speed of the practice is going to be different for them. The intensity is going to be different, too, even without hitting.”
When the Cowboys do put on pads, that’s when Guidry said he and his staff will begin evaluating talent and making notes as to who they believe has what it takes to earn a starting position. Until then they’re happy to let the squad learn where it needs to be and when it needs to be there.
Guidry said this is the time of the year he most anticipates, mostly because of the non-football-related activities he has to participate in during the offseason.
Today he gets to be a coach, and that’s his favorite part of the job.
“This is why we do it,” Guidry said. “To me it’s about getting on the field, on the grass, and coaching kids. We want them to be better football players. It’s not about doing interviews, it’s not the fundraising, that’s not why I’m in this thing. I’m in this thing to coach kinds and to try to make them better football players and better human beings.”
McNeese head coach, Lance Guidry.
