The Syracuse Orange football team is back on the field. It's the practice field, but, it counts. Dino Babers seems pretty pleased with the state of his team so far. But how are the players feeling?
Eric Dungey has put on some weight and talked about how he's not going to be running quite so much this year. The sophomore quarterback also said that he's already seeing the difference between the old regime's way of practicing and the new one.
"A lot faster. Always moving. Never really a break. It's like conditioning with practice so it's nice."
It's hard to remember that Dungey's so young that he wasn't even here for spring practice last season. He's excited to get another first under his belt.
"I'm really excited. It's my first spring ball. It feels like I've been here a lot longer than that. It's kinda crazy thinking I've only been here six months. But I'm just taking everything in, trying to be the best I can be and make others around me better."
Wide receiver Steve Ishmael joined Dungey in saying how excited he is about the pace of practice now.
"I'm really used to the slow-pace offense. This fast-paced offense caught me off guard. You know, we actually did it for one year with Coach McDonald but it wasn't as fast as this. I feel like it's a real good scheme, it'll catch a lot of defenses off set, so it'll be really helpful. I'm really looking forward to this year and I'm really confident in Coach Babers."
Ishmael seems extremely excited about the possibilities for himself and the other wideouts under Coach Babers' offense.
"If you look at Bowling Green's receivers from last year, both of them had over 1,000 yards. So just by that you know that this offense is no games. We come out here, we take shots, we do everything. One thing I love about Coach Babers is that he wants to get in the endzone. He's not settling for nothing less. A coach with that attitude is really helpful to the team cause you know the team's gonna start thinking the same way."
Speaking of guys buying in to Dino Babers, offensive linemen Omari Palmer and Jason Emerich had high praise for the new coach.
Said Emerich: "We're all on board so far and moving as we go. We're trusting the coaches. We have faith in the coaches and the coaches have faith in us learning the offense. We're excited about it."
"I'm a senior. It's my fifth year. I might never play football again, so why not buy in?" Palmer said. "I can't think of any cons for giving my effort, giving my all toward this and having faith in what we do as a team and as a program."
"We've only won seven games in the last two years; we've got to change a little bit," Emerich added. "We've got to change something. We're excited about the tempo. I know that's for sure."