BLACKSBURG, Va. – A new staff always brings change to the gridiron, whether its structure, regime, or culture. But with a little under a week into spring ball, there’s been one change that has stood out most to the players.
“Competitiveness, competing in everything we do, compete in all the little stuff,” Norell Pollard said.
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“Throughout the offseason, you want to have your competitive edge, and stay competitive through the workouts,” Keshon Artis agreed.
And with competitive workouts like “The Hunger Drills” comes personal incentive. Every morning, a “spring ball-er” of the day is named.
“People want to be practice player of the day and that encourages them to go out and go hard and I feel like just do the little things they have to do to win practice player of the day,” Pollard said.
Coach Pry has also instilled confidence in veteran players to coach up younger guys and put more emphasis on we, instead of me.
“There’s one player, Gunner Givens, he had a rush, and lost the rush. He’s very good, but it was the way he rushed that time,” Pollard said. “Coach Price [said] go talk to nono (Norell), he will coach you up. I really appreciate that from Coach Price for trusting me to be a leader in that room.”
“We’ve been stressing, competing, compete, compete, compete,” Jesse Hanson said. “But one thing Coach Rudolph has told us, we’re going to compete the right way, we’re a team, we’re going to win but win using the right technique.”