Sunday, August 26, 2007
More the merrier for VMI
The number of players on the practice field is reason enough for Keydets’ coach Jim Reid to feel optimistic.
2007 College Football Preview
Courtesy of Chuck Steenburgh | VMI
VMI receiver Tim Maypray (28) was the Big South rookie of the year in 2006. Maypray caught 14 passes for 244 yards and two touchdowns last season.
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LEXINGTON — Ten is the big number, the one that jumps off the page.
VMI lost 10 games last season. Ten in a row, to be precise, including four straight losses in the Big South Conference.
But 88 is the number that coach Jim Reid points to. Last year, Reid said, he had just 62 players suited up after the first couple of days of practice. He had to go up on a hill to recruit practice players from the corps of cadets. This year, there were 88 suited up, sweating their hind-ends off in the preseason.
And how about this number: 17. Reid said 17 of the 20 players he recruited last year, are back this season. “And one of them we asked to leave,” he said.
To Reid, in his second year of a seven-year plan to turn the VMI football program around, retaining recruits and simply having enough players to run a full practice are triumphs.
Such triumphs, he believes, will lead to victories — eventually.
“The excitement around the whole team has changed,” said senior cornerback Robert Brown. “There are a lot more numbers. We have a lot more excitement here.People have a lot more faith in the program. ...
“Everybody just wants to win as a team.”
But there is still the matter of those 10 consecutive losses, and more. VMI also lost quarterback Jonathan Wilson, running back Sean Mizzer and even its kicking game in punter Adam Peters and kicker Barrett Way. Wilson, Mizzer and Peters had all played out their eligibility. Way, who would likely have been the Big South’s preseason kicker of the year, has decided to transfer, Reid said.
Reid has “37,000” candidates vying for the quarterback position, “five we recruited,” he said.
Chiefly Kyle Hughes, who stepped in at quarterback as a freshman last year when Wilson was hurt, and Joey Robinson. Robinson, an all-purpose threat last season, got all the snaps at quarterback in the spring because Hughes left school “for personal reasons,” he said.
“It was only a short while before I knew I had made a mistake,” Hughes said.
Both Hughes and Robinson said they are cooperating in practice. The competition, Robinson said, “makes us all better.”
“The offense demands at least two outstanding quarterbacks,” Reid said of his option attack.
The rest, Reid said, will move to other positions or be red-shirted, a luxury that wasn’t possible for skill positions last season.
At least, Reid points out, this year he has a choice. He won’t be moving a talented athlete out of the quarterback slot because he is desperate to fill another position.
Whoever delivers the ball, he will have proven talents in the slots to give it to in senior Nat Jackson and last year’s Big South rookie of the year Tim Maypray.
Sophomore Howard Abegesah is slated to fill Mizzer’s cleats at running back.
Preseason all-Big South guard Robert Brown and center George Handler are the only returning starters on the offensive line, but Brown said the line has been “in the books, studying the playbook.”
“We’re working hard, trying to mesh together,” Robert Brown said.
VMI’s defense, Reid said, needs to “establish an identity.”
The Keydets are breaking in a new defensive line, losing Eric Hall, Charlie Liesfield and Jack Herzog to graduation.
End Andy Viola is the line’s only returning starter. He’ll play alongside redshirt freshman Ben Brandt (tackle), Robbie Appel and Tommy Lloyd, who was also a tight end last season. Reid also said freshmen Josh Wine and Sam Palmer and redshirt freshman Damiso Alexander will see action on the line.
Last year’s leading tackler Patrick McKinney leads the linebacking corps, along with returning starters Terrell Allen and Jacob Rochester.
Corners Marcus Brown and Christian Kelly and safeties Levi Swindell and Keith Taylor all return. Chi Chi Ezekwe made the move from wide receiver to safety in the spring.
McKinney said his team doesn’t need a complete overhaul, and he has some numbers of his own to back up the theory.
The Keydets lost each of their four Big South games by a touchdown or less, they lost the lot by 19 points.
“Those conference games we lost by an average of 4.8 points,” McKinney said.
“We just need a little bit more here and there.”
