Army West Point Athletics
Football Resumes Spring Drills Monday
March 20, 2009 | General
WEST POINT, N.Y. - As spring break week at the Academy draws to a close, the Army Football squad is gearing up to resume its offseason practice on Monday. The Black Knights began their regimen on March 7, conducting three practices before the stoppage.
While the players have been away, the Army coaching staff has been hard at work evaluating personnel based on the first three practices. The information gleaned from the tape of those opening workouts, the Black Knights' first under new head coach Rich Ellerson, has allowed the coaches to make decisions that will put their charges the best positions to succeed.
"We took all that we learned from those first three practices and made some decisons about our system," Ellerson said. "We tried to come up with the best ways to take advantage of our personnel. We still have a few experiments left, but I would say we are about 90 percent set. Now the players can start to settle in and compete at those positions, which will allow the practice environment to look a lot more like football."
The first week back on the field will be crucial for those cadets that will be asked to make a position switch. While the pace and intensity of practice will not change, Ellerson understand there will be a learning curve involved.
"We have to make sure we get the rust off," Ellerson explained. "When you have a player make a change, it requires a step back sometimes. We wanted to make these moves and get everyone caught up. We won't install our entire offense or our entire defense this spring, but we want to make sure we teach fundamentals. That won't get done this week, but by that next week, we should get guys competing more and more."
Monday's practice starts a stretch of three straight weeks of work for the Black Knights. Army is scheduled to take the field at the Foley Athletic Center on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of each week. Fans can follow the Black Knight's progress this spring with written practice reports on www.goARMYsports.com as well as video updates on ITT Knight Vision.
The annual Black/Gold Game is set for 5 p.m. on Friday, April 10 at Michie Stadium.
