Fritz Wants Eagles to Exaggerate Their Efforts in Technique and Fundamentals
8/6/2014 10:01:00 PM | Football
First Scrimmage Set for Saturday Morning at Paulson Stadium
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STATESBORO, Ga. – There's one word that Eagle Football Coach Willie Fritz uses very often at practice: "Exaggerate." He doesn't want his players to tell him tall tales, but he wants them to overdo it when it comes to technique and fundamentals on field.
"Most of the time it involves technique and fundamentals," said Georgia Southern Head Coach Willie Fritz. "It's exaggerating synching your hips on a tackle or block, exaggerating hand placement, exaggerating ball security, exploding your eyes into the tuck, just really trying to exaggerate all the basic fundamentals of football. So that when you get into a stressful part of the game you will utilize that technique. You may not get it perfect, but you'll get some of it. Whereas, if you just go through the motions, you'll get none of it in the ball game. We always stress during practice to exaggerate every type of technique that you are trying to do."
Fritz's actions are in line with his words – he'll demonstrate for the Eagles the type of technique he is looking for, and he encourages his players to have a sense of urgency in drills and even when they are coming on and getting off the field.
"It's hard to win with 10 guys on the field, it's impossible to win with 12," Fritz said. "So we want to make sure we have the proper 11 guys on the field for every single situation. I also think it's a disciplined football team, getting on, getting off the field, hustling on and off the field, we don't want to be yelling and screaming at them on Saturdays because that's how they are used to doing it all during the week because that's how we coach it."
With the first week of practice complete and a two-a-day practice Thursday and single practice Friday, Fritz is going to taper and alter the practice headed into Saturday's first scrimmage. He'll observe the scrimmage, review film and start the new week on Monday with players in a first group and second group, and others working with the scout team.
"We are working with everybody right now through Saturday's scrimmage," Fritz said. "Not everybody will be getting equal reps starting Monday. We are going to taper off a little towards the end of the week here so we can see these guys as fresh as possible Saturday."
RIBBON CUTTING FOR FOOTBALL OPERATIONS CENTER
Georgia Southern University President Brooks Keel and Director of Athletics Tom Kleinlein welcome Eagle fans to the ribbon cutting for the Football Operations Center, the new headquarters for the Football program on Saturday, August 16th at 9 a.m. The Eagles will take the field for their final scrimmage of preseason camp at 9:30 a.m. and will join members of the Women's Soccer, Men's Soccer and Volleyball teams and sign autographs beginning at 11 a.m. on the North Concourse.
OUR HOUSE
With the expansion of Paulson Stadium, Eagle Nation has taken over, not only in numbers, but also in terminology. For many years, the two sides of Paulson Stadium were referred to as "home" and "visitors," even though Georgia Southern students almost entirely populated the north side. In an effort to standardize the naming convention, the sides will be called "North Stands" and "South Stands" according to cardinal directions and will be designated as such in all communications and on all department maps and diagrams.
FREEDOM'S FIRST FLIGHT
Georgia Southern's live mascot Freedom had his first flight of his "preseason" from the top of the press box to the field Tuesday. Over the last 10 days, Steve Hein, Director of Georgia Southern University's Center for Wildlife Education and the Lamar Q Ball, Jr. Raptor Center, has worked with Freedom incrementally in terms of distance and height in preparation for the upcoming season. Hein helped Freedom acclimate to the new surroundings at Paulson Stadium and had practice runs for Freedom's flight over the May 2014 graduates. The 10-year-old American Bald Eagle will begin his eighth season as part of Georgia Southern's pre-game festivities.
SCRIMMAGING ON SATURDAY
The first scrimmage of the 2014 preseason will take place on Saturday, August 9th at Paulson Stadium, which will also be the first time the Eagles will don full pads this preseason. The plays portion of the scrimmage will begin at approximately 9:40 a.m. Georgia Southern's practices are open to Eagle fans, however, any filming, recording or photography is limited to members of the media only.
SEASON TICKETS ON SALE
Season tickets for the Eagles' first campaign in the Sun Belt Conference and FBS are on sale online now at GSEagles.com/fbtix and weekdays 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. by calling 1-800-GSU-WINS. The five-game home campaign opens September 6th vs. Savannah State with two historic Thursday night games on ESPNU September 25th vs. Appalachian State and October 30th vs. Troy.
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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