When the sun rose over Statesboro Monday morning, it dawned on the official start of the Eagles’ 2016 football season.
    Spring practice and summer workouts were already in the books, but when over 100 Eagles crossed over Beautiful Eagle Creek Monday, it was to open up fall camp and the one-month countdown to Georgia Southern’s season opener.
    “We’re all excited to be back out here,” GS quarterback Kevin Ellison said. “We’ve worked on our own through the summer. Now that the coaches are here and we’re all practicing as a team, it helps keep things in order and keeps us at the pace where we need to be.”
    For the last seven months, much of the talk surrounding Georgia Southern has focused on a change in power. Tyson Summers was introduced as the Eagles’ new head coach just days after the team’s first ever bowl victory last December.
    Summers will be the Eagles’ third head coach in the last four seasons, and while some changes in the playbook are sure to come, the new coach focused most of his Monday observations on the intangibles.
    “We had a good, hard practice,” Summers said. “Midway through, we took a break and then finished strong. We communicated really well in the back end of practice, which is something we want to see.
    “Right now, it’s a competition. When you ask what I’m looking for, (competition) is what I’m looking for. We don’t want anyone sitting there and feeling overly comfortable. With the challenges of our schedule this year, we need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
    One thing has been clear since the Eagles’ first practice of the spring – Summers and his coaching staff aren’t afraid to crank up the pressure and keep it dialed up.
    If not for the casual jersey-shorts- helmet look the Eagles sported on Monday, it would have been hard to distinguish the session from a full-speed, midseason practice. Players went full speed in position-specific drills and the complete offensive and defensive units were able to quickly and efficiently flow through plays and substitutions.
    Another holdover from spring practice – a constant, loud stream of music from on-field speakers – served to keep the atmosphere lively while also providing a distraction that forced players to focus.
    “There’s no doubt that practices are tougher than the last couple of seasons,” senior center Andy Kwon said. “But I think that’s how everyone wants it. We worked hard in the weight room all summer. Now it’s time to work hard on the field.”
    “I saw a confidence carried over from the spring,” Summers said. “There was confidence in knowing what kind of practice we were going to have. We’re going to go hard over the next nine days (before classes begin) and will look to get all of our packages in.”
    The Eagles will scrimmage in the middle of next week and again at the end of camp.
    When classes begin on Aug. 15, the Eagles will switch their practices from the morning to the afternoon. From there, they’ll have two weeks before hosting Savannah State on Sept. 3 in the 2016 season opener.
    Mike Anthony may be reached at (912) 489-9408.