Excitement was in the air Wednesday morning as the Georgia Southern football team hit the field at the Tippins Center for the first of 25 preseason practices before the Eagles host Charleston Southern Sept. 5.
“I can't tell you how important these 25 opportunities in the month of August are for us in preparing for that opening game and for a season,” said coach Clay Helton. “This is a team of depth. You can see it in the first practice, but it's also 46 newcomers that are learning to play together and develop chemistry together.”
Among the groups needing to build chemistry, the Eagles have 11 new starters on offense. How they end up gelling together could be the difference in a good and a great team.
“We've got a lot of work to do offensively,” Helton said. “You can see the talent's there but there's going to be some growing pains in camp and we've got to push really hard offensively. It's hard to replace 11 starters, but that's our job. We don't make excuses, we find answers. Those guys will progress each and every day and you can see them progress from spring. We've put in a lot of work through spring and summer. We can see a little bit of it right now going in the right direction, but there’s still a lot of work. If I'm being real, there's a lot of work to do.”
Among the first-year starters on offense is North Carolina transfer quarterback Max Johnson. Johnson could be the key to the Eagles' success on offense and has been trying to bond with his teammates on and off the field.
"They lived together over the summer,” Helton said. “We had eight weeks of training together. In July we threw every week with the guys. They would bring them out individually and be able to get that work. Obviously, we have our player-run practices, our walkthroughs, and they did a really nice job. You can tell they are ahead of where they were in spring.”
Johnson hasn’t played a full season of football since 2021 but says he feels as healthy as he ever has and is excited about the chance to put his injuries behind him and play a complete season.
“The injuries I have had have been freak accidents,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t like a pulled hamstring, it has all been some kind of broken bones. I have put my body in the best shape I can be. I am down to four percent body fat and my speed is back to where it was before my injuries. I think that is a testament to people here at Georgia Southern.”
One of those people Johnson was referring to was strength and conditioning coach James Heiss who many players thanked for helping them gain muscle and speed. The Eagles have had some injury issues over the past few seasons and Helton believes some of that will be helped by the kind of shape the players are currently in.
“I challenged coach Heiss and his staff to make the biggest, strongest team, and most importantly, the fastest team that we've had,” Helton said. “When I look at the bodies, yes, they're big, but they're athletic and fast.
"We went out and invested in the Catapult system which has wearable technology to track data. It costs money to be able to gauge, from a technology standpoint, how far our guys are running and how explosive their workload is that they're getting every day. It then allows us to train test so you're not having to do 40’s one time a day, one time a summer.
"You're actually seeing every time they get out in a workout. We had 82 personal bests since they've been at Georgia Southern as far as speed-wise. We had four guys over 22 miles per hour, 30 guys over 21 miles per hour and 72 guys over 20. It's really an explosive team.”
