Eagle Football Works on Mastering Fundamentals
4/3/2014 10:05:00 PM | Football
Relentless effort still the emphasis of practice
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STATESBORO, Ga. – Even after a day away from the practice fields, it was easy for the Georgia Southern Football team to get back into the groove. The Eagles were off Wednesday after four-straight days of practicing in shells with Thursday's practice featuring more of fundamentals and drills before unit and team work.
"I think we are playing with the type of effort I am used to having our guys play with," said Coach Willie Fritz. "They are really doing a job of playing with good effort. They are understanding the practice structure we have, and that is becoming better and better each and every day. We're trying to add schematically each and every day, offense, defense, kicking game. We are trying to get our base fundamentals down and the kicking game as well."
In addition to emphasizing effort, and emphasizing effort and emphasizing effort, repeatedly, the Eagle coaching staff has the Eagles focused on mastering fundamentals, from the position and movements of the hands on blocking drills to footwork and balance.
After this week's practices and the first scrimmage Saturday, Fritz said he plans to introduce a lot more schematically over the next week.
CONCUSSION RESEARCH: As spring practice got underway last week, so did the resumption of the use of Georgia Southern's concussion monitoring system. Georgia Southern is the only collegiate football team in the state to use the Helmet Impact Telemetry System (HITS) which measures and records every hit to the head during practices and games.
The University received a $385,000 National Institutes of Health grant in 2011 to study concussions and with funding from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development, Georgia Southern has equipped helmets with the Riddell HITS system. Thirty such helmets are in use this spring with six sensors inside each helmet that measure the severity of a hit to the head.
A typical impact in football lasts about 15 milliseconds, and in that instant, measurements from the sensors are transmitted in nearly real-time to a laptop computer on the sidelines of all practices and games.
If a hit reaches a certain threshold, a pager worn by the head athletics trainer and graduate assistant trainer receives a notification. Each impact will also be time stamped and can be synchronized with practice video so coaches, athletics trainers and researchers can better evaluate the hits.
UPDATED PRACTICE SCHEDULE: Georgia Southern will practice in shorts and helmets Friday afternoon at 4:45 p.m. on the practice fields. Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m., the team will be in full pads for the first time for its first tackle-to-the-ground, full-pad scrimmage at Paulson Stadium. Quarterbacks will be in red jerseys and will be protected.
"Saturday is going to be a very generic scrimmage," Fritz said. "We are going to get out there and play some football. We have been playing three plays at a time, we'll go to five plays at a time and play with relentless attitude and pursuit and being extremely aggressive. Most importantly, having the coaches on the sideline and not correcting them on every play, having them make decisions and (find) solutions to problems on the football field."
PENLEY PAINTING OF COACH ERK RUSSELL ON DISPLAY: Eagle fans who watch the scrimmage at Paulson Stadium Saturday can stop by Artsfest. A short walk from Sweetheart Circle are the galleries located in the Center for Art and Theatre where "Erk," a portrait of the legendary Coach Erk Russell as interpreted by renowned Georgia artist Steve Penley Center is on permanent display. The mixed-media piece defined by Penley's bright colors and impressionistic brush strokes was presented to Georgia Southern University by Georgia First Lady Betty Foy Sanders. The galleries will be open from 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
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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