Murray State University Athletics
Racers Get After It Early in First Morning Practice
8/7/2008 5:00:00 AM | Football
The Murray State football team hit the practice field bright and early this morning as the Racers conducted their first morning practice of Fall camp. The Racers took the field at 8:05 a.m. for an intense workout.
The team continued to work on their special teams before breaking up to working in individual groups. The team came together for a short team period that saw the offense hit on some big plays. DeAngelo Nelson had the biggest play as he hauled in a pass down the left sideline and raced down the field for a 68-yard touchdown.
Practice concluded with an old fashioned tug-of-war between the offense and the defense. Each side selected their top eight guys to compete, with afternoon conditioning on the line. The defense dominated from start to finish and thus do not have to go through agility stations at the start of this afternoon's practice.
The team will move its practice inside Stewart Stadium for the rest of Fall camp, beginning with a 4:05 p.m. practice this afternoon.
Head Coach Matt Griffin:
On Thursday morning's practice:
I thought we came out and moved around pretty good. I was a little disappointed with our focus. We had some mental errors that are as fundamental as football gets from the linemen. Three practices and six days in we just have to get better and we are going to be. This gives us a really good chance to challenge them in the afternoon and we are going to come out and do the thing right.
On what he is seeing out of his team through the first three practices:
I like the enthusiasm and the fact they stayed together. To have that this early is a direct reflection on the classes being a little bit deeper. We only have six seniors but we are in the mid 20's in juniors. We finally have some older kids, some experienced kids, and that is what you have to love.
It's one play at a time and the things we talked to these guys about is doing their job in every part of camp. And after we are done, whether we've done it poorly or well, we have to move on and play the next play. Task at hand right now is watch the film and correct the mistakes we made this morning and go out this afternoon and make sure we don't make the same ones.
