Albany State football holds first football practice of season | PHOTOS

ALBANY — Football season is officially underway for the Albany State Rams as they were up early Monday morning to participate in their first practice of the new season.

The day started with position drills and was followed by a few conditioning drills and a scrimmage. When asked how his team looked on day one, head coach Dan Land laughed and said they didn’t achieve perfection as he would’ve liked, but they are around where they need to be.

“First day of practice wasn’t too bad. It went as expected,” he said. “I knew the guys were gonna be a little bit sluggish, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be because they came over the summer, they worked out and they got some good class work out over the summer. So they were a little bit sharper than what I thought they were gonna be.”

The returning members of the team include nine preseason first and second team SIAC All-Conference players as well as the preseason offensive and defensive players of the year. Land said the accolades certainly help motivate his team to go all out at practice.

“I knew they were gonna respond to it,” he said. “They looked at our schedule when the schedule came out and they knew exactly what to do and who we have to play in order to get to where we need to get to in order to win a national championship.”

According to preseason offensive player of the year Jarvis Small, the main thing they need to do to reach that goal is remain disciplined.

“We just gotta be disciplined and not make any mistakes,” he said. “That’s basically it because football is 95 percent mental and five percent physical…so we’ve just got to be disciplined and not make mistakes.”

He said while their confidence is high thanks to the preseason predictions, his team has to put in the work in order to live up to the hype.

“It definitely lifts your confidence up, but like I was telling the other people, you can’t look too much into that because it ain’t nothing but the preseason,” he said. “But we’re just gonna come out here and work hard every day.”

Land is hoping the work ethic and mindset trickles down to his younger players who are still trying to adjust to the pace of college football.

“What I’m concerned about is the younger guys knowing what to do and being able to apply it at a fast pace,” he said. “Right now, they’re doing a lot of thinking and they’re hesitant and hesitance gets you beat.”

There’s no word on who will start under center for the Rams. Land said he still has three capable candidates for the quarterback position and he’ll continue to assess how they perform in practice and make a decision later this month before their season opener against Valdosta State.

Land said the Sept. 5th matchup with serve as a test as to how far they have to go to be a national championship contender.

“Valdosta is always a good team. In the last eight years, they’ve won a national championship twice, so they’re always gonna be a good team,” he said. “All we want to do is be able to play with them, stay on the field with them and do we need what we need to do.”