Andy Coen said that the last two years his Lehigh University football team had begun its spring practice schedule in snow.
There was no snow on Friday when the Mountain Hawks hit the field for the first of 15 practices that will culminate with the Brown and White game on the morning of April 21.
But adjusting to Friday's summer-like weather wasn't the only thing that was different for the two-time defending Patriot League champions.
"There's a lot of newness with this group and yet with that newness the expectations don't change," Coen said. "What I liked about last year's team is that coming off the 2010 season they wanted to raise the bar even higher. Fortunately, we were able to do that and now the challenge to these guys is to raise the bar yet again."
The newness extends beyond the players.
Earlier this week Coen announced that defensive line coach Donnie Roberts and secondary coach Gerard Wilcher would share the defensive coordinator position, a staff spot left vacant by the recent departure of Dave Kotulski to Stanford.
"You always try to have a plan in your mind, especially when you start winning games, because you know you might start turning the staff over," Coen said. "I've always had a plan in mind if we had to replace Dave. I didn't want to deviate from our scheme. I love our scheme. If we had hired a veteran 3-4 formation guy, he might have wanted to come in here and put his own spin on it.
"I liked what we were doing and with all of the new faces we're going to have on defense, I just thought it was best to keep as much continuity as we could on the staff. We have great leadership on this staff. I have tremendous confidence in both Donnie and Gerard and a lot of people are going with the co-coordinator model. It was an easy decision."
Wilcher, who was on the Lehigh staff even before Coen replaced Pete Lembo, previously had been Lehigh's defensive coordinator back in 2005.
"It's old, but it's also new," Wilcher said. "It's exciting. The great thing is we still have talented kids. As Andy always says 'tradition never graduates.' You just plug them in during the spring and get them going from there."
Wilcher said the disagreements between him and Roberts, the former head coach at Central Catholic, will be kept to a minimum.
"Oh, we fight only about once or twice a day," Wilcher kidded. "Actually, we get along real well. It's going to be enjoyable. Being a co-coordinator could be a problem if you don't know the guy really well, but we're good friends and we'll be able to hammer out our differences. We'll be fine."
Besides the new areas of responsibility for Roberts and Wilcher, Lehigh welcomes Matt Sanders back to the staff as the inside linebackers coach. Sanders had been on the staff as recently as 2009, but spent the last two seasons working outside of football.
"Matt got married and was living in Chicago, but I'd still here from him every week," Coen said. "He felt he needed to get back into coaching and this created a great opportunity for him. A lot of kids on the team remember him. He's a great fit here as a recruiter, a coach, all the things I really value."
With the coaching staff now solidified, Lehigh can go to work on shoring up areas of concern within the squad.
"We need to look for depth in our linebacking corps," Coen said. "We're graduating four guys who started. We're going to look for young guys to step up there and we're going to have a tremendous opportunity for our offensive linemen. We have three returning starters on the O-line, but all three are coming off surgery and won't be participating in the spring. So, there will be a lot of newness there and young kids will get reps."
Still, the position drawing the most scrutiny will be quarterback where Chris Lum put up some of the best numbers in Lehigh history over the past two seasons.
"Mike Colvin is the No. 1 guy right now, but he still has to go out and earn it," Coen said. "The other quarterbacks have done a nice job and we'll take a look at Brandon Bialkowski and Gerard Poutier. We'll have some competition. We really want to do a better job in the red zone this year."
Coen said the whole objective this spring will be to set a tone that fights complacency.
"We're graduating a lot of really good players, but the expectations for the new guys will be the same as they were for the guys they're replacing," Coen said. "We're all ready to get on the field and get to work. The weather's great and we've been in the office a little too much."
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/morningcall/sports/college/~3/IXdy53KQlL8/story01.htm
lionfish conjoined twins justin bieber paternity justin bieber paternity kym johnson how old is justin bieber how old is justin bieber
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন