University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Veterans, Newcomers Arrive on Campus
8/3/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Veterans, Newcomers Arrive on Campus
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - The Southern Miss football team is primed and ready to work, as Sunday officially began the 2003 football preseason.
Veterans, first-year players and walk-ons reported on Southern Miss' campus today. Everyone who was expected to report did, with the exception of incoming freshman linebacker Chaz Richards (Troy, Ala.), who was involved in an auto accident on Sunday.
"Everyone reported in except for Richards," Golden Eagle head coach Jeff Bower said. "He was in an automobile accident on the way to Hattiesburg. He totaled his truck, and the last we heard, he was in a Montgomery (Ala.) hospital, but we don't think that it was anything serious."
This marks the first time in recent years that all members of the Golden Eagle team reported on the same day, thanks in part to new NCAA regulations concerning preseason programs.
Now Bower, who is beginning his 13th season at the helm of the Southern Miss program, and his staff get an opportunity to look at the entire 2003 team -- including an initial look at the first-year players.
"I hope it will be a good first-year group," Bower said. "We are going to practice them separately from the varsity players for the first four days, just so that we can give them more attention."
All first-year player practices will run from 10 a.m., through noon each day, beginning on Monday and ending on Thursday. During the first week of practice, the varsity players will attend weightlifting sessions while the first-year players practice in the morning. In the afternoons, varsity players will run through specialty workouts, and the first-year players will go through various orientation meetings.
Despite the new NCAA regulations, the Golden Eagles preseason is expected to run smoothly. In addition to the reporting changes, the new regulations also mandate that two-a-day workouts may not be held on consecutive days.
"We are going to have an opportunity for more meeting times, in addition to our practices, and we can do a few different things," Bower said. "We are still getting the same number of practices in, and we are also going to be able to work on conditioning more than we have (in recent years)."
The first full practice for all players is scheduled for Friday, beginning at 1 p.m. Two-a-days begin on Saturday, Aug. 9, with practices scheduled for 7:35 a.m., and 3:55 p.m.
This preseason also will be the first for a handful of Southern Miss coaches, including three on the offensive side of the ball. The new coaches also mean new schemes for the players, many of which will be incorporated over the next few weeks.
"We will move on as fast as our players allow us to," Bower said. "We still have a lot more to put in, but I would rather do a few things well than try to get in too much and not do anything well."
Southern Miss opens the season on Aug. 30, when the Golden Eagles travel to play California in Berkeley, Calif.
