It sounds so cliche, but it was a solid week. I was supposed to have 13 guys starting this week, but only 8 decided football was important. With these guys (at this time of year) there are never any issues. These are the kids that WANT to be here. So, it was a very easy week for me. No yelling, no punishment for stupitity/laziness. Just some good, solid training sessions.
They did themselves a favor and came back in decent shape. I saw who struggled on The Hill. But, that will hurt anyone. The skill and big skill kids did well. It took the slowest kid 15 minutes to do 6 trips. The slowest OL/DL was about 18 minutes. To me, this is a good start.
This year I cut back the work we're doing at the beginning of the summer. In the past we've jumped right in. Although I do like this method, it doesn't work well with our level. The last time I worked with these guys was a month ago. Saw about 6-7 of them the first week before finals. Saw about 3-4 on Monday and Tuesday of finals week and then they all no showed. So realistically, these kids really haven't done much since spring ball which ended on April 22nd.
Instead of burying them, to prove a point which they have yet to get in 3 years, I decided to be smart and account for them being non-scholarship dedicated (which really means conveniently dedicated). Next week I'll slightly increase the workload in the weight room and in conditioning.
I think it'll work out just fine in the long run. After all, we have 98 days until football season. If they can't be in shape by then, they suck. A moron could accidentally get in great shape in 98 days.
So far, I'm happy with the changes to the template. Obviously, it' only been one week and time will tell if it was actually a smart change or not. But, the start has been good.