Incremental Improvements as Eagles Finish Monday’s Two-a-Day
8/12/2013 3:51:00 PM | Football
VIDEO: Ball security drill / QBs and B-Backs -- August 12, 2013
STATESBORO, Ga. – Georgia Southern's practice fields will be empty on Tuesday as the Eagles wrapped up an intense stretch of eight practices in five days Monday afternoon. The team will return for its final two-a-day of the 2013 preseason Wednesday morning with single practices the rest of the week. The Eagles will hold a scrimmage at Paulson Stadium Saturday morning after "Meet the Eagles" at 10 a.m. to close camp.
The valuable time on the practice field along with position meetings, time in the playbook and watching film has made a difference for the Eagles, especially as the Georgia Southern coaching staff continues to install elements on both offense and defense.
"As my good friend Todd Spencer, who is now coaching at Army used to say, 'incremental improvements,' I think we're making incremental improvements, just a little bit each day," said Georgia Southern Head Coach Jeff Monken.
After reviewing film from the previous practice, the coaching staff can work on the areas that need corrections or improvement. Instruction on the field, and continuous review, will help the Eagles' comfort level, as an offense, defense and at their individual positions.
"The competition has been good because the defense has been able to tweak a few things that they will see throughout the year from other teams we play and have that film to evaluate," Monken said. "With the shotgun, we are more versatile in terms of the different things we are doing, under center we're the same Georgia Southern offense and will continue to be -- that's good work for our defense and we'll face that twice this year. It's a little bit more of a head start for our defense than they have had in years' past with the different things we are doing. They can start to make some corrections and get game-planned for what they will see most of this season."
Coach Jeff Monken pushed the afternoon practice back to a 5:45 p.m. start with the Eagles taking the field as the heat index hit triple digits. While the yellow buses and plain uniforms are part of Georgia Southern lore, so too is the winning tradition. That tradition is forged on the banks of "Beautiful Eagle Creek," where, Monken explained, this team faces the same challenges as the Eagle teams of the past, including the heat and humidity of Statesboro.
"Eight practices in five days is physical toughness, mental toughness," Monken said. "You are going to get sore, you are going to get knocked around, can they fight through that, just being able to come out here in the heat. There are going to be games like that we play this year where it is going to be hot and we need to be ready for it."
The first practice of Monday's two-a-day got the Eagles off to a solid start with 16 periods of "good work" in full pads on the banks of beautiful Eagle Creek. The routine, while familiar, still allows for plenty of learning and review. Nearly a third of the practice was spent on position drills with option work for five periods, skelly and team interaction.
"We have to start to get into the review of the things we put in," Monken said. "We still installed some things today, a play or two on offense, little subtle changes on defense, in the kicking game, just some situational things we have to get in. There's still a lot. We want to get in what we think is going to be the bulk of our offense and defense and be able to go through that over and over and over again for the next couple of weeks before we play and get good at what we believe in."
Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics and twitter.com/GSAthletics, and its new "Eagles GATA" mobile app for Android and iOS. Fans can follow Coach Jeff Monken on his official twitter account, @CoachJeffMonken.
