BUIES CREEK, N.C.-After 14 practices and one scrimmage, Campbell head football coach Dale Steele sat down to discuss the progress of the 2012 gridiron Camels.
Question: You're almost two full weeks into camp. How is this football team shaping up to this point?
Dale Steele: We continue to develop daily. Any time you're dealing with as young of a group of players as we are, every day has to be a learning experience. If you were to ask me where we are, in terms of where I thought we'd be at this point, I think we're about where I thought we'd be, and maybe a little ahead with the nuts and bolts of how we do things. We're not having to spend a lot of time teaching this group how to practice or how to do the things that go along with being a good football team. We've been able to jump right in and teach them football. I think that is always something that will put you ahead of the curve with a young football team.
Q: What has been your main focus and/or message to this team?
DS: To improve every day. Before camp, we established objectives that we wanted to accomplish during our two-a-days. One of the first things that we wanted to do was to identify our playmakers, the guys that can go in, compete and win in this league. The second thing was to bond our team and bring the chemistry of this team together. The third objective was to get ourselves physically ready for the grind of the season. The last item was to take our offense and defense, and have them ready to execute all assignments.
Q: How has having the new stadium lights benefited your team so far during preseason camp?
DS: They have been a tremendous benefit. We're not restricted to always doing things the same way, and weather doesn't affect us as much. We're able to meet in the afternoon and practice later in the day. It has also helped us in terms of getting into the Saturday ritual. We're practicing about the same times as we're going to be playing five of our football games, so we've been able to mimic the mindset and the preparation of a game day.
Q: What do you think has been the players' favorite and least favorite parts of preseason camp?
DS: Well I think certainly their least favorite part of camp is all the meetings. You always have to have a lot of meetings in the preseason, especially when you have such a young football team. I think we all enjoy practice to some degree. We might not like the heat, but we all love getting out there and throwing or catching the ball. I think all of us prefer that to sitting and watching ourselves on film in meetings.
Q: Looking forward to the remainder of camp, what do you hope to see?
DS: We have two big scrimmages this week. I think we need to see improvement from last Saturday's scrimmage. We still have a few question marks at a few positions, and we need to get them solidified before we start to work on Shorter. It's a process, and in the process of two-a-day camp, we need to see improvement in those areas. Those are the things, as a staff, that we'll be looking for as we go through our next six days.
