Maryland Football Relishes The Opportunity to Put On Pads Once Again
Photo Courtesy of Maryland Athletics.
Nov. thirty, 2022 was a dank, overcast day in East Lansing, Michigan Maryland Football game took on Michigan State at Spartan Stadium. No ane on the roster or the coaching staff could've predictable that to exist the last fourth dimension the Terps would put on pads until Sep. 30, 2020.
As the coronavirus pandemic postponed the season and created a truncated offseason, the Terps oasis't been able to exercise traditionally. However, that changed Wednesday as Maryland returned to padded practices. It too marked the start twenty-four hours of Maryland's daily testing regiment as function of the safety protocols implemented past the Big Ten Conference in its return to play programme.
"The excitement the kickoff day back [in pads] was like beingness a little kid the day earlier Christmas waiting for a nowadays," sophomore linebacker Cortez Andrews said. "That's how it felt for me and my teammates equally well."
With excitement in mind, Midweek'due south practise represents another stride in the right management for the Terps before their return to play Oct.24 at Northwestern. Prior to Wednesday, the Terps wore only helmets and shorts during exercise. Despite not wearing pads, each do remained important for a young roster in their grooming for the 2022 season.
"The period without pads was a keen time mentally for united states to understand the playbooks and empathize what nosotros're trying to get accomplished," Andrews said. "I would say the biggest thing without pads was the mental reps."
Despite practicing without pads, the Terps weren't defective excitement or intensity. Nevertheless, that excitement and intensity has merely grown since putting pads on again. Information technology also has galvanized the team's competitive spirit. Redshirt sophomore Jeshaun Jones, who's returning from a torn ACL has been flashing his big-play potential throughout preparation army camp. He also hasn't been shy about letting his teammates on defense force know about it.
"I like to talk trash, then I talk a little bit to the defense," Jones said jokingly. "They're pretty happy to actually be able to get some pads dorsum on and really hit me."
Returning to padded practices also means a return to conventional football with hard hit and physicality. Still, because the Terps haven't had pads on in near a twelvemonth, head omnibus Michael Locksley and his staff are placing a heavy focus on fundamentals early on on. The Terps began padded practices with just shales or shoulder pads, earlier progressing to fully padded practices.
Locksley and his coaching staff take placed a heavy focus on "thudding", when a player wraps someone without taking them to the ground. They're also keeping in mind the importance of maintaining player safety in this new COVID environment.
"The concrete piece is really of import for a young team like ours to develop the callousness necessary equally [football is] a physical sport," Locksley said. "There's a lot of education moments that go into putting the pads back on, how to thud properly."
As the Terps aren't traveling to Evanston to face Northwestern for about three weeks, the current practices are function of the "install phase" of return. These early on practices which take featured important teaching moments are indicative of the practices that occur during a traditional training army camp.
The main goal of these electric current practices is reacclimating the Terps back to the traditional physicality of football. It's as well meant to let the coaching staff to implement the philosophy and schemes they want executed. Rather than kickoff to gameplan for the Wildcats, the Terps are more than focused on improving themselves.
"Nosotros have a plan set forth as to when nosotros'll start on the Northwestern preparation," Locksley said. "We've allotted almost a 10-eleven-twenty-four hour period period of preparation for Northwestern."
Source: http://wmucsports.net/maryland-football-relishes-the-opportunity-to-put-on-pads-once-again/
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