Skill players impress an Lions begin camp
Published on February 5, 2007 under World Indoor Football League 2 (WIFL 2)
Columbus Lions News Release
COLUMBUS, GA, February 5 -- Towards the end of their first preseason practice, a few Columbus Lions were breathing heavily, but that could be expected from a one-hour, 45-minute session where 16 players competed in pads and "went hard continuously from drill to drill", according to Head Coach Jason Gibson.
Gibson and his assistants (Norbert Sullivan, David Daniels and Fred Williams) put their charges through a tremendous amount of running in a workout for six wide receivers, six defensive backs, three quarterbacks and a running back who showed up a week before his required position's reporting date.
"It was a good first-day tempo, with no rest time between constant running routes and cover routes," said Gibson. "We have better pure football players than in the past. I'm impressed at the speed of our receivers and their ability to catch the ball. They do have a lot of work to do on timing, but you'd expect that right now." Gibson mentioned wide receiver Tirone Morris out of Florida A & M as a particularly fast wideout.
Defensively, "We've got a great group of guys for what we're trying to do. They're not as big as we'd like them to be, but the defensive coaches are fired up about their ability to get it done." Gibson cited former Hardaway H.S. and Ft. Valley State defensive back Cedric Ware as "quick as lightning all over the field."
INJURIES: None of note, despite temperatures that dropped into the low 30's as the sun set.
QUOTABLE: Gibson : "I saw a lot of mental mistakes offensively and defensively, but that's excusable when players get tired after such an end-to-end workout. We threw them to the wolves, just put 'em on the field and said 'let's play football'".
Gibson: "I'm very pleased at the type of men we've got, good guys, superstars in the team sense. They're friends, they all get along, they're communicating well."
Gibson: "I want us to be the best-conditioned team in the league (WIFL). Tomorrow, we're going for a faster tempo, a more professional practice, trying to get crisper each day. I don't want us to peak until the championship game!"
NOTABLE: Liberty University running back Eugene Goodman worked out at receiver, though not due to arrive till the running backs and lineman report February 12 ........... Quarterbacks Andrew McKay, Davon Brown and Chinedu Okoro all did well, in Gibson's view. McKay transferred to Liberty after backing up D.j. Shockley at Georgia, Brown played for Gibson's Chattahoochee Vipers last year (AIFL) and Okoro comes to the Lions from Tuskegee University ............ Half of the Lions ownership group attended the first practice and spoke to the gathered team, including Joe and Angela Wagenti, Kike and Skip Seda and Shep Mullin.
World Indoor Football League 2 Stories from February 5, 2007
- Skill players impress an Lions begin camp - Columbus Lions
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