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NEWS, NOTES &
COMMENTARY
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The
Bradsher Beat
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
By Bethany Bradsher |
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Spring finds Pirates in
Golden condition
�2006 Bonesville.net
Any contractor knows that you have to start with
quality building supplies. As spring football gets underway, the East
Carolina football coaches are convinced that they have some of the most
solid raw materials they have had in years.
The primary reason they�re starting with such a
foundation in place, the coaches say, is strength and conditioning coach
Mike Golden.
Golden, the former strength coach at the
University of Connecticut, joined the program last May, so he has just
finished his first offseason with the Pirate players. He is intense and
disciplined, and he has toiled to develop not only strength and endurance
but also mental toughness in the team.
�I just look at the strength results, and right
now it�s impressive. It�s impressive, the gains a lot of these players have
made,� Holtz said. �You hear people say it all the time, that he�s one of
your assistant coaches, and he may be the most important one. You talk about
having a direct impact on your football team, that strength coach is as
important as anybody you have on your staff.�
�We made up a lot of ground with Mike Golden,�
defensive coordinator Greg Hudson said.
Golden�s influence has also helped ramp up the
intensity of the spring workouts that started last week, Hudson said. New as
they were last year, the coaches were a bit tentative as they got acquainted
with their new players. This spring, thanks to Golden�s efforts and a unity
forged through one season together, the players have faced high expectations
from the start.
�The task at hand is to get the players to
perform at a much higher level,� Hudson said. �Last year they thought we
were pushing the envelope, but I would categorize last year we were being
pretty nice. We were being fair, and now a fair is where you buy a pig in
the summer.�
So even if spring comes in like a lion and goes
out like a lamb, the ECU coaches hope the Pirates will come into spring
workouts like lions and leave like even fiercer lions. Most of them don�t
have to learn a new system like they did last year, and the two victories at
the end of the season let them taste success as all of the pieces of the new
schemes started to lock into place.
�Defensively, the light had gone on during the
second half of the season, even though the results weren�t there,� Hudson
said.
Physical conditioning is a key component of
preparing a team for spring and then fall, but NCAA rules changes about
offseason meetings also allowed the coaches to meet with their players to
talk about schemes. Those meetings are helping as Hudson and his
counterparts try to plug the best two players at each position into the
preseason depth chart that they hope to release after the first full
scrimmage on March 24.
Particularly on defense, many of the athletes
are being groomed to fill in several different positions on the field.
But one offensive area where further evaluation
will be needed this spring is quarterback, where James Pinkney seems to have
locked up the starting job but three of his teammates � Rob Kass, Brett Clay
and Patrick Pinkney � are stacked up at No. 2.
�They�re all going to get a lot of reps, they�re
all going to be in a battle, and at the end it�s going to be who does the
best job putting the football team in the end zone,� Holtz said.
A few of the Pirates who are expected to be
impact players in the fall are being forced to sit out spring practice with
healing injuries, especially defensive end Marcus Hands and linebacker
Pierre Bell.
The injuries keep the coaches from seeing the
big picture at times, Hudson said, but they open the door for younger
players to make an impression.
�It allows us to force feed and develop some
other guys,� he said.
And in position shifts that were decided before
spring practice even began, Davon Drew is moving from quarterback to tight
end, Patrick Dosh and Kort Shankweiler are both trying their hands at
fullback, and Jerek Hewett, a natural cornerback who moved to wide receiver
last season, is going back to the secondary.
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Bethany Bradsher.
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02/23/2007 01:12:52 AM |
