Football updates

We're getting ready for spring practice to start, so thinks are heating up on the football front. Here's a couple things that are going on...

First, the final additions to the football staff have been announced.

First, Mark Carney will coach WRs. He is a Cleveland native who played for Clawson at Fordham and coached for Clawson at Richmond. He helped bring along Stacey Tutt, who is now in the NFL. (I don't mind any of these Richmond guys coming on board, because Richmond had a killer offense, and I hope they can do the same thing here).

Second, Mark Elko will be the co-defensive coordinator and Coach LBs. Also from Richmond, he is the player who departure from TN-Chattanooga apparently irked the Coach there, who also came from Richmond. (I think I have heard more about the Richmond football since December than in the rest of my life combined. Otherwise, I do remeber hearing about a train going there, and it fell, and that's a time I remember, oh so well).

He has coached some pretty good D's, at least on paper, and he graduated from Penn, which is in the Ivy League School. (An Ivy League punter was once in a college All-Star game and one of the other players asked him what their line averaged....and he said "About 3.80.")

Third, Mark Sheier will coach TEs and Special teams. Fans would always prefer that special teams have their own coach--and not without some reason in our case--but TE isn't too big a position, so I think its probably OK. He is a special teams specialist who comes from Lehigh and was at Princeton before that. He is also an Ivy League graduate (Dartmouth).

Is it possible there are more Ivy League graduates on the football staff than on the faculty?

Anyway, Jack Carle of the Sentinel had a spring practice preview article...here's are the key points, read the whole thing here.

• We could have been a great team last year but we didn't do the little things right.
• We need to develop mental toughness. (Solid if not original strategy).
• There is no depth chart. (Uh, OK. I don't buy it, but that's probably a symbolic point to make).
  
• Michael Ream was a beast over the winter.
• Brady Minturn will not participate in contact.
• Brown and Mahone are the key players on defense.
  
• Starters will play on special teams....check this quote out.

"You've got to put our best open-space and in-space athletes on those teams. If a guy needs a play off, I would much rather they take a play off on offense or defense than on the special teams."

And the Falcon Nation oozes into a soft, warm place of contentment. That, of course, is Ay-Ziggy-zoomba to the ears of those of us who have watched the team give away too many games due to bad to lousy special teams.