University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Eagles Head Into First Major Scrimmage
8/13/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
Eagles Head Into First Major Scrimmage
Hattiesburg, Miss. - Southern Miss worked "under the lights" Tuesday night as the Golden Eagles finished preparation for a 1 p.m., Wednesday scrimmage, the first major scrimmage since the team reported for fall practice. Following that single workout tomorrow, the team will have just two days of two-a-day workouts remaining.
Head Coach Jeff Bower says the players responded to the workout change with the best practice of the fall season. "We had a heck of a practice tonight," said Bower. "We had a lot of enthusiasm, the players flew around and worked hard and had a tremendous attitude for both workouts today, but especially tonight's."
The night workout also set the stage for the first scrimmage of the fall, and Bower says the coaching staff has some definite goals they want to accomplish with the scrimmage. "We want to play with great effort and be a physical team," he said. "We've always prided ourselves on being physical on game days. We also need to be sharp. We have experience coming back on both sides of the ball, and, particularly with the first unit, we should be really sharp, with a minimum of mistakes."
The Tuesday night workout also ended a week of work and Bower says the cool weather for most of those days has allowed the team to get a lot accomplished. "We'll find out tomorrow (Wednesday) how much progress we've made," he said. "We've been able to stay on the field longer with the cool weather than if it were real hot, and it has been a productive week."
Players also got some added "instruction" when the coaching staff ran several plays to end practice. Bower says it was done in an effort to help the staff and players have fun. "We always have a little extra session at the end of practice, and tonight I made the coaches do it," he said. "We want to have fun with what we're doing, you want the morale to be good, that's so important, and I think the players really enjoyed watching the coaches 'do their little deal' after practice."
Following tomorrow's scrimmage, the team will work twice Thursday and Friday and scrimmage again at 11 a.m., Saturday, following a morning rules clinic with C-USA game officials meeting with players and coaches.
Classes start Aug. 19, and the Golden Eagles open the 2002 season Aug. 31, at home, against Jackson State. Southern Miss follows that with two more home games, against Illinois, Sept. 7, and Memphis, Sept. 14, before hitting the road for the first time, Sept. 21 at Alabama.
