By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – And they're off – the first practice of Tennessee Tech football's fall camp is in the books and it was a great start for the Golden Eagles.
With the individual workouts completed, the team met with the coaches and got started in its preparations for the 2018 campaign, which begins on Aug. 30 with a trip to Chattanooga.
Head coach Dewayne Alexander started his first fall camp in charge of the Tech program on Thursday and it couldn't be more thrilled to be in this position.
"It feels great," he said. "This is my 30th fall camp as a coach and this one is extra special to me to be here with the Golden Eagles. We had an excellent morning. We worked on a lot of procedural things as we got on the field. We had a few new guys join us with camp check-in yesterday that weren't here in the summer, so just getting everybody ready to work out on the field and make sure we're all in the right places, it just turned into a very good first practice."
With the practices opened to the public, football alumni, fellow Tennessee Tech coaches, faculty and staff as well as some curious fans came into Tucker Stadium to check out the team's progress.
But like the first day of camp anywhere, it's all a learning experience – for new and old, especially after a coaching transition.
"There is a lot of teaching," Alexander said. "Coaches do a lot of teaching – just detail things. Where you line up, footwork, communicating is a big thing offensively and defensively. There were a lot of good things today. I heard a lot of that during practice. I saw a lot of good teaching by the coaches out here and I saw our guys really responding well to that, paying attention to that and we'll get a lot of learning just from this film and watching them this afternoon."
The biggest thing though was the guys were having fun, especially after spending weeks of individual workouts together, but they were definitely still focused on taking care of business.
"As a coach, when you're having the guys go through the summer workouts and conditioning, you have to make sure they understand the purpose of it," Alexander said. "You're always having to sell them – the purpose is that you're preparing for the game in the weight room in January or March. But it's not football season then. They can sense it now. The first game is August 30 – that's only 29 days away. You start to realize the urgency of it. Fall camp really turns up that football intensity and how meaningful each practice is and how important it is to prepare. I think they understand the urgency in our first game being just around the corner."
Practices continue on Friday as the team continues its first five-day acclimation period before the team puts the pads on for the first time on Tuesday morning. Team practices begin approximately at 9 a.m. and are open to the public.
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Photo by Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
