By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Tech head football coach Dewayne Alexander knew exactly what the gravity of the situation was as he was coming into his first Ohio Valley Conference Football Media Day as the leader of the Golden Eagles.
After a 1-10 season last year, a last-place projection was pretty much expected.
However, that doesn't mean Alexander and his Tech players are going to be complacent with the ninth-place pick.
"It's a preseason pick," the first-year Tech head coach said. "The perception of our team is that we're the ninth team in the league. We should be – we were 1-10 last year. It's based off last season. The thing about our players and our coaches is that we don't see ourselves as the ninth-place team. They're confident that they can win football games. Our coaches feel like our guys can line up and compete every week.
"To me, that's the most important thing. We can't control what other people think of us, but the people who made those predictions haven't seen us practice, haven't been around us during summer workouts. The other good thing is that it is a preseason pick, so we have the opportunity with all those other eight teams who picked us last, either at their place or ours, to show that the pick was wrong. Now we have a chance to do something about it."
The good thing is the Golden Eagles also took two All-OVC Preseason Team spots with senior kicker Nick Madonia and senior defensive end Tim Collins, leaving Tech with a cornerstone to build on to prove that perception wrong.
"Tim and Nick are great guys and we have a great group of seniors," Alexander said. "Anthony Akers, Alex Carling, Josh Poplar, we have older, returning guys. We have some great older guys who were here when I was an assistant coach, so they've been key in getting the message moving in what we want to do and how we want to move forward and to look to the future.
"With Tim and Nick, those are some preseason picks, but I feel like we have some guys that we can add to the postseason team if we can do some things that I'd like to see our team do."
Collins, who recorded 51 tackles, five tackles-for-loss, six quarterback hurries and a fumble forced and recovered, was honored with the selection, but felt that the ninth-place pick gives the Golden Eagles some motivation.
"It's a blessing," Collins said. "I've been working hard ever since I've been here. You keep your head down and work and work. If you do that, everything will happen for you. You don't really try to worry about the extra stuff. You just try to do the right thing on and off the field. We're going to control what we can control, but by them doing that, when we play the other eight teams that picked us last, we're going to do all of our talking when the time comes."
Throughout the day, Alexander reminded his players not to put a lot of stock in the projection.
"They haven't seen anything we've done since January," Alexander said. "It's all based on last year. From that standpoint, we're looking to prove what we're capable of."
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