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Georgia Southern University Athletics

Eagles Represent Georgia Southern at Sun Belt Media Day

Summers, Fields, DeLaRosa take center stage in New Orleans

Coach Summers at 2017 Sun Belt Media Day
AJ Henderson - Georgia Southern Athletics

Football | 7/24/2017 3:32:00 PM

PHOTO GALLERY

NEW ORLEANS -
With the start of preseason camp a day away, Georgia Southern head football coach Tyson Summers, along with senior linebacker Chris DeLaRosa and junior running back Wesley Fields represented the Eagles at the 2017 Sun Belt Media Day, held in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Monday.

The three went through the car wash of media interviews and photo shoots throughout the morning and into the afternoon before heading back to Statesboro before the start of camp on Tuesday. While they were away, the team convened on Monday night for a team meeting and check-in and wil hold its first practice Tuesday morning at Beautiful Eagle Creek.

For Summers, he did several radio interviews, an ESPN3 studio shot, Facebook Live with the GS Radio Network, the Sun Belt Digital Network and talked several local television stations. The topics remained consistent with what's he's been asked since the spring, including the new offensive staff, the differences between year one and year two and about the two players who came with him.

Fields and DeLaRosa did many of the same interviews but also spent plenty of time in the student-athlete lounge, enjoying the fine cuisine and a few games of pool against others players.

Select Quotes From Media Day
Head Coach Tyson Summers

Q: With some of the difficulties you had with getting going as the season went along offensively are there any particular changes in place in terms of scheme, base formations, or more or less  cut blocking anything like that in particular? 
TS:
Going forward this year one of the biggest things you'll see from an offensive standpoint obviously being able to bring in three guys with  coordinator experience along with Chad Lunsford and Chris Foster very much believe in the  same things and come from very similar backgrounds, I think you're going to see an offensive  line that is playing downhill and attacking similar to most option teams are and I think you're also going to see your explosive plays and really those are because the continuity, certainly  think that the answers are built into our scheme and better than what you would have seen last year. Great experience at those spots but we do have two good running backs coming back and  certainly we wind up having four of our lineman coming back and a starter from two years ago coming back as a fifth guy so we feel good about that.  And we'll see who comes out next and  who is going to be the guy and make those explosive plays for us. We do not know today.
Q: Heading into this season what adjustments have you made in your own personal coaching style based on how last year went down? 
TS:
Well I think the biggest thing anytime you're in your second year you know I had the question earlier about today and how it was versus last year  coming to media day. Man your first year you don't know what to expect in a lot of different things, people can tell you that they do and that it's an easy transition and all that but I  remember coming here last year not having any idea what the Superdome looked like, what the layout would be, how many people were here so I think that anytime you're in a transition you  feel more comfortable your second time through things. For me I have just really tried to pour my heart and my time into individual players and try to build trust and cohesion with our guys.   And try to make sure that what we do from and X's and O's standpoint really does comes back to the coordinators and try to make those guys feel like they can do what is best for our team  offensively, defensively, and special teams and mine has been about building relationships and trust- with players coaches, staff, we will, we are trying to be a little bit smarter.  A question  earlier today about how to be able to go back to practice with a young football team, we are bringing our guys out earlier and have breaks built in, have three days of practice and a recovery day over a five week preseason as opposed to two straight weeks. We are being smarter with our bodies and our health.
Q: Defensively, DeLaRosa missed half the season with injury, how to you expect to see improvements on that side of the ball and what do you want to do well overall on defense?  
TS:
Well, totally opposite from a year ago, last year our big question was the secondary. Darrius Jones was a returning starting and then after that we such little playing experience.  So we are  really looking forward to that group being our strength this year. Being able to get Chris back healthy and then guys like Todd Bradley who felt like was going to be a fantastic player suffered injury for us last year, being able to get him back on the field going, Rashad Bird had a good Spring practice for us as anybody. And then we have Coach Zo on our defensive line, he has  been our defensive coordinator, we have moved him to our defensive line coach as well, a guy who has a tremendous amount of experience with the defensive line and put a ton of guys in  the NFL and does a great job with that position.  Really, the place that we talked about needing to have experience fast needs to be in the front setting.  We do think we have a tremendous  group of players they are just young at those spots.  Pressure is a big key to it, pressure at the quarterback, I thought we were poor at that and if we do not do that we will put our secondary  in a bad position and we are going to have to be in condition to be in recovery all day long. So we have to do a better job at that and I think what you're going to see the second year in the  system is us being more aggressive on defense and guys playing with a little faster contact speed.
Q: Two things: Was there pressure to get back to a more familiar option in Statesboro, or was it purely what you thought was the best course of action?  Will we continue to see a  quarterback by committee? 
TS:
In reference to last year we had two quarterbacks and it had been two or three years of playing multiple guys. We kept that mindset last year because that is  what had been done and that is where they felt comfortable and our guys felt comfortable. That is not what we want to do necessarily moving forward, we would like there to be a guy we feel like is the guy and certainly can lead our offensive and our football team and we are looking for that at the quarterback position this year and hoping for that to be one individual instead of two. We really felt like we started the year in the position to be in an option, as the season evolved trying to deal with that success we evolved our mindset to try and give us a better chance. It was my decision to be able to go back and make some adjustments and go  hire the best people we can and felt like we did that.  
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Players Mentioned

Chris DeLaRosa

#34 Chris DeLaRosa

LB
6' 1"
Senior
Wesley  Fields

#21 Wesley Fields

RB
6' 0"
Junior

Players Mentioned

Chris DeLaRosa

#34 Chris DeLaRosa

6' 1"
Senior
LB
Wesley  Fields

#21 Wesley Fields

6' 0"
Junior
RB