E is for Effort
3/30/2014 8:37:00 PM | Football
Fritz employs two-whistle system to get Eagles to over-exaggerate their effort
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Post-Practice Interview with Coach Willie Fritz, 3-30-2014 (All-Access Subscription required)
STATESBORO, Ga. – Coach Willie Fritz doesn't agree that playing with effort is something reserved only for his football players. He expects his assistant coaches to make sure they are coaching effort as well.
"It's really most important for the coaches," said Eagle Head Football Coach Willie Fritz. "I think a lot of coaches over-coach technique, scheme, all those kinds of things. They don't coach effort. – that's something that you have to coach on every single play."
Georgia Southern held a 27-period practice, just over two hours, on the banks of "Beautiful Eagle Creek" Sunday afternoon. Individual and position drills give way to pass skelly and team work, finishing up with a series of called plays on both offense and defense.
The importance of effort to Coach Fritz is evident, not only as Eagles are involved in a play on the field, but also how they approach going on and getting off the field. Effort in running on and off into position or to the sideline is part of the Georgia Southern culture. That emphasis on effort will translate to all other aspects of the game.
"The first thing we have to do is play extremely hard and one of the things we try and do is get the guys to exaggerate their effort," Fritz said. "We use two whistles in a lot of drills and what I am trying to do is get our guys programmed to play two seconds after the whistle blows, obviously, you can't contact anyone after the first whistle blows, but we're trying to play two seconds past the whistle on every single play."
Georgia Southern players waiting to go in for the next series, staff and fans near the sidelines kept a keen eye out for Eagles who were going after the ball without regard for the painted line markers. They were going full force until they heard the second whistle blow.
"You can only emphasize so many things," Fritz said. "We try to emphasize about seven things that we are trying to do a good job of coaching, getting our guys to do. We want to play with great effort and another one is the turnover-takeaway. We want our running backs and receivers, anyone who is handling the ball, be cognizant of ball security at all times. We are also over-exaggerating taking the ball away. In my career as a head coach, when we have been +1 or better, we have won over 90 percent of our games, and +2, we have never lost a ballgame."
The evaluation period continues for players on both offense and defense and Coach Fritz and the new coaching staff will continue to observe Eagles in different scenarios without regard for who ran on the first, second or third team last year.
"I told everyone that they are starting with a clean slate here and I had no preconceived notions about them," Fritz said. "What I know about them is what I have seen so far, the majority of the guys, it's been excellent, a few guys, starting to get in the doghouse a little bit. We're going to give everybody an opportunity to show us what they can do during spring football. We are going to go about seven practices like this and then start having a real first group, a real second group, and instead of working with three groups, we're going to cut it back and start working with two groups."
PRACTICE SCHEDULE: Georgia Southern makes up its Friday practice on Monday, March 31st, with a 4:45 p.m. start time and gets back on schedule with a 4:15 p.m. practice Tuesday. This week the Eagles have planned practices Thursday and Friday with their first scrimmage, and first outing in full pads, on Saturday, April 5th at 9:30 a.m. at Paulson Stadium.
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, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS app Georgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA.
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