There will be more on BGA from today's Ivy League football press conference tomorrow, but for now, here are head coach Sammy McCorkle's opening comments (which thankfully were a little more specific than most):
Sammy McCorkle :
I’m excited. We’re 10 days away. Ten days away. It seemed like a long time ago when the season ended, but it's here. And I tell you what, our guys have done a phenomenal job ever since the season ended last year.
Just the commitment they've made to this program and to each other. I think that's the most important thing. That's one of our core values - accountability. Our guys hold each other accountable and they hold themselves accountable.
We’ve got a good mix. We're going to have a good mix of experienced players coming back from last year, and we're going to have a good mix of guys who, it'll be their first opportunities to to go out there and perform. It's exciting.
I think that'll be the biggest thing for us going into preseasons, to find out what that mix is going to be about and who's going to be part of that mix. We bring back a number of seniors. We have 26 seniors on our roster, one of the bigger bigger ones we've had in the last couple years.
I'm really impressed, regardless of their status or their playing time they've had over their years here, all 26 guys are completely committed to this program. They know what our standards are. They know what our core values are, and those guys bring it every single day.
Probably between 60 and 70 percent of our roster has had some type of game-time experience in the past, which helps. That's important, especially in this league. It's all about experience.
Our guys do a very good job of helping each other, developing each other, mentoring each other. Guys that have played a lot in the past have done a really good job during last season, then in the off-season and preparing ourselves for preseason of getting our guys ready to perform. And having expectation across the board.
Offensively, we return our starting quarterback, Grayson Saunier, one of our team captains. We're really excited to have him back.
We've got a number of guys who are going to have to step up and play for us on the offensive side of the ball. But we also have a number of guys who make plays and who've made plays for us in the past.
Defensively, you've got two young men on here today (safety Harrison Keith and defensive lineman Joshua Johns) that are great leaders, great football players. They're going to be two guys that are going to help lead a defense that I'm excited about.
Special teams-wise, we bring back every specialist – our starting kicker, our starting punter, and our starting long snapper.
I think the biggest thing in preseason is going to be an opportunity to find out the most important. Find out what it the identity of our football team is. That's going to be huge. They're the ones that are going to decide. They're going to decide what we're going to be about. And I look forward to getting started up in about 10 days.
Check back tomorrow for more.
