Stan Williams stood on the sideline at Emporia State’s first football practice Thursday and marveled at what a difference a year makes.
“Man, they’re gonna be faster,” Williams said.
Williams is a custodial specialist who has been working with the football team for five years. Any keen observer who has been around the program in recent years could see on Thursday that the product Garin Higgins has put on the field in his second season doesn’t much resemble the 2007 team.
“I think it’s a world of difference as far as where we’re at from last year our first day,” Higgins said. “You see a feel of those guys being comfortable with what we’re doing.”
The Hornets operated like a veteran squad their first practice, which is a surprise for a team with 59 freshmen. Players transitioned smoothly from drill to drill, there wasn’t any complaining and if one player didn’t hustle off the field, another was quick to tell him to do so.
“It’s a lot more positive. I think whenever you have change, change is kind of scary to people,” senior defensive lineman Angelo Webb said. “I don’t know if people were quite comfortable with the new coaching staff last season, but I think now, a year in, everybody’s comfortable and used to them. We know what to expect and we do it.”
The weather sure didn’t hurt the positive energy that everyone exhibited at practice. Cloud cover made for an unusually cool first practice in August. As Higgins said, everybody’s an All-American in cool weather. But Webb was actually disappointed.
“I was joking with one of the guys earlier today in that it felt like a Thursday or Friday before a game late in the season because of the weather,” Webb said. “I would have liked it to be a little more hotter to get the season started.
“I think if it would have been a little more hotter, it would have felt like practice had started and the season has begun. I like a little heat personally.”
That quote put a smile on Higgins’ face.
“That’s the type of thought process that I want our kids to have,” he said. “I want them to not worry so much about getting a break from the weather or trying to get something — maybe we didn’t do as much running and they’re happy about that. I want them to be disappointed. I want them to say, ‘Coach, we need to do more running’ or ‘I wish it was hotter out here.’ Angelo being an older player, having that type of attitude, that’s what we’ve got to have.”
Higgins said the Hornets still have a long way to go before their first game Aug. 30 against Western State, but they are weeks ahead of where they were last year on the first day. While Thursday was the first day of practice, many of the players have already been around all summer, conditioning and preparing for the season.
The commitment to the program was evident as the first-team offense and first-team defense scrimmaged with no tackling.
“We’ll definitely be better,” Webb said. “I think the main difference is a year in with the offense. We went from your typical MIAA power offense, smash-mouth-run-it-down-your-throat offense to a spread offense and when you don’t really have that personnel; it takes a while for the personnel you have to adjust to it and get used to it. I think our offense will be a lot stronger just because they’re used to the system and I also think defense, we’re going to be a lot better.”
Thursday was the first chance for some of the veterans to see the talent Higgins has been recruiting to implement into his system.
“We look a lot better overall,” Webb said. “I think coach has recruited a lot of speed and then our summer workout was a lot more explosive- and speed-based, instead of power-based. I think it really helped our overall team speed and quickness.”
Again with the speed. Whether the Hornets have more success in the MIAA in 2008 is still up for debate, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll be a whole lot faster.
“Everybody’s flying around,” junior quarterback Andre Sloan El said. “We have high expectations this year. We’ll definitely do a lot better than we did last year.”