Mountaineers Hit the Ground Running on Monday
Mountaineers Hit the Ground Running on Monday: MONTGOMERY, W.Va. On the Steve Antoline Family Practice Field, the West Virginia University football team got right to work on the first day of preseason training camp.
Under gloomy skies and cooler-than-average August temperatures, Coach Neal Brown took his players through an exercise that lasted around an hour and 40 minutes.
According to Brown, his crew is far more prepared than it was at this point last year in terms of knowing what to do and where to go. He gives the NCAA’s new regulation allowing organized team activities (OTAs), made popular by the NFL, credit.
We were able to have a number of OTAs this summer since it was the first one in which we were permitted to do so, according to Brown.
He added that the OTAs are set up so that players don’t compete with one another, but rather that they may learn about assignments and alignments during this time. Before the coaches left for their summer vacations, the OTAs were completed primarily in June and early July.
Due to the high rate of player transfers in today’s market, OTAs allow college schools to introduce fundamental formations throughout the summer in a non-competitive instructional setting.
Brown claimed that the two weekly practices in June lasted around 50 minutes each and included low-speed foundational work on offense, defense, and special teams.
As a result, the squad was able to begin discussing the fundamentals of offense, defense, and special teams right away this morning.
“We didn’t tell anyone, “This is where you line up,” today. The NFL excels in several areas. In my opinion, this will continue as long as staff members don’t misuse it “Black remarked.
OTAs are especially useful right now, since rosters are so erratic because of the transfer site.
But in the spring, Brown continued, “we were very explicit with our group that there would be a number of guys added to the mix. “Hey, this is team 130, ” we said when we arrived in the summer. The current team is this. On Memorial Day, we had this group of people.”
According to Brown, the offseason is essentially divided into three phases: the winter phase, the spring phase, and the summer phase.
“The first four weeks of our eight-week winter phase are devoted entirely to strength and conditioning. The boys get a vacation in May, which is necessary, after our five-week spring ball season, “Black remarked. The summer season, which lasts eight weeks and is followed by a return, lasts nine weeks.
Prior to the start of the fall semester on August 17, according to Brown, his squad will have 12 practices. However, the team will stay in camp mode until Thursday, August 25, one week before the season opener at Pitt. The team’s key scrimmages will thus be held on Thursdays to coincide with the Thursday night season opening.
Brown said, “The way our camp is set up, we never practice hard more than three days in a row.” “We want to build things up. We have low, moderate, and high levels of practice, and we must progress to those high levels. On September 1st, we want to be on a course where we play at our quickest and are most rested.”