Chris Raimondi, Sports Editor
A typical practice no longer exists for Kennesaw State’s football team. On the Friday following a week of practice after the team’s open scrimmage, the tune of Kenny Chesney’s “The Boys of Fall” echoed across the Perch’s turf while players immediately began practice with 11 on 11.
With the public scrimmage in the books, KSU’s football program will now set its sights on the spring game in March. Until then, the players and coaching staff will take on the task of staying driven through the lull of being a year away from actual competition.
As the colder months approach, the thought of bodies exhausting and minds tiring is not something that has KSU’s coaching staff concerned.
“Our guys know what we’re playing for,” strength and conditioning coach Jim Kiritsy said. “Obviously it’s difficult to bring it every single day on the field and in the weight room, but they know that they are laying the foundation for something special.”
Head coach Brian Bohannon has come up with more than a few ways to keep his players on their toes. “We have music, we swapped the jerseys and we flipped the practice schedule Monday and Wednesday,” Bohannon explained. “What you’re doing is creating energy.”
Everything from the defense and offense exchanging the color of their practice jerseys, to linemen fielding punts, is an example of Bohannon and his staff taking every measure to prevent the 85 freshmen on roster from falling into a monotonous routine.
Friday’s practice, which was in shells, started out with 11 on 11’s then transitioned into individual position drills, the reverse of what players have come to expect since late August.
Special teams are not excluded from the practice alterations either. “I want to get them [special teams] involved,” Bohannon started. “It’s a way they can get out of conditioning.” Before the team begins their sprints, the entire squad lines up to watch the kickers and punters. The punter is allowed two punts and must down the ball inside the 10 yard line to knock off part of the team’s conditioning time. Likewise, the kicker must make a pair of field goals from each hash at a certain distance to shave even more sprinting.
“The last thing we started doing is letting linemen catch punts,” Bohannon said. “We take offensive and defensive linemen and if they catch a punt then we knock another sprint off.” Along with the perks of skipping out on conditioning, the kickers are put under a pressure situation in practice.
Even ‘Owl Time’ has been given a new twist. Owl Time, usually a variation of Oklahoma drills, was turned into a tug-of-war competition between offense and defense during Friday’s practice.
Through all of the changes, Bohannon referenced what he believes his players’ true response will need to be. “I can change the jerseys, we can play the music, we can do all of those things, but ultimately we have to decide that we’re going to lay the foundation fundamentally with effort and how we do things for the future of this football program,” Bohannon said. “We’ll do some things along the way, but ultimately you just have to dig down sometimes and grind through it.”
Kiritsy has developed a systematic regimen of his own to keep players in the weight room motivated. “In the weight room we always accommodate for injuries,” Kiritsy explained. “We’ll have a program for the healthy kids, we’ll have a program for the lower-body injured kids and we’ll have a program for the upper-body injured kids. So we’re eliminating any excuses of theirs to not work as hard as they can when they come in. We’re going to find a way for them to maximize their time in the weight room.”
However, he mentioned that not much will differ from what they have already been doing in his department. “We’re trying to establish a certain technique in the weight room that is going to allow us to build a bullet-proof body,” Kiritsy added. “That’s going to take time, but there’s nothing specific outside of just sound fundamental training that we’re going to do.”
As if the players didn’t have enough encouragement coming from their coaches, the “Win The Day” competition put in motion in the beginning of the semester is “getting heated,” according to Bohannon. The competition, in which the roster is divided into four teams and members are awarded points based on effort and attitude on and off the field, is quickly coming down to final grades of the semester.
An update on the standings of the competition: 1st Team Migos-461, 2nd Team IDGT-354, 3rd Team Cobra-322 and 4th Bird Gang-235.
