RADFORD, Va. – Radford Bobcats head coach Matthew Saunders knows its been a quiet off season for his players.
“Well, you can tell they haven’t been doing a whole lot so you have to tone it down a little bit,” said Saunders.
But there’s no lack of creativity on this July evening.
We do stations of cone drills, ladders, bag drills, we can’t have a ball yet it’s kind of tough. It’s not a typical workout, it’s different,” Saunders said.
All this conditioning will certainly be helpful for quarterback Zane Rupe, who is one of 18 seniors on this years team.
“Right now, I’m focusing on getting back in shape, doing the footwork drills, changing direction, stuff like that. Getting big in the weight room,” said Rupe.
But social distancing and sanitizing doesn’t seem to be the hardest part Radford and other teams are dealing with.
“It’s been tough because you don’t know where to start, what you want to get in, what you don’t want to get in,” said Saunders.
“Right now, I’m just trying to get them in a little better shape. Whereas you could start after Labor Day, start in February, I don’t know.”
But the Bobcats have still been moving forward, motivated by last season’s finish.
“We knew we had a good team, had a couple guys go down. We know we can get back up to the top. We’re just trying to show people we still got it,” said Rupe.
“My sophomore year we went 12-2, had an off year last year. We’re just trying to show people we still got it.”