VMI football concluded its first spring practice under head coach Scott Wachenheim with a controlled scrimmage Friday that focused on the two-minute drill and special teams.
The workout ended a busy three weeks for the the program that implemented new offensive and defensive sets over the 15 practice format while continuing strength and conditioning. The team will now break for exams to wrap up a busy spring semester.
Following Friday’s final practice, Wachenheim spoke about the team’s progress this past month.
On Friday’s scrimmage –
“I really enjoyed today’s scrimmage. We had opportunities to work on the four-minute offense, the two-minute offense, the two-point play in overtime and some special teams.
I think we got a lot out of it. We worked on slowing the pace down on offense, which was good. We worked on our huddle, snapping the ball with five or less seconds on the clock and other things we didn’t have a lot of time to work on at the beginning of spring.
Spring ball was excellent. We got all of our goals accomplished and I’m happy with the way the young men competed this spring.”
On what the team accomplished both on and off the field the past few weeks –
“We wanted to get them to believe, and I think they do believe in themselves now. We wanted them to gain some confidence, which comes from repeated, demonstrated performance and I think they did that on the football field this spring. They made good plays, and we can build on that.
In the classroom, we’re seeing our young men improve academically by leaps and bounds. I can’t wait to see the results from finals week and to see how they did in the classroom.
We’re asking our guys to be the best they can be in everything they do – militarily, academically, socially and on the football field. Our young men are learning how to compete and they’re getting better in all areas of their lives.”
On what will the focus be heading into this month and leading up to the summer –
“Right now we’re focused on finals. We want to finish strong in the classroom and make sure they don’t take any shortcuts. There is an honor code at VMI and we want them to follow it. We take a lot of pride in that. That’s the big emphasis for this week. After that it will be training – getting bigger, faster and stronger in the weight room.
We formed the team into eight companies, alpha through hotel, which have both upperclassmen and underclassmen and they’re supposed to stay in touch with each other. We spread out a little bit – some guys are taking summer classes, some are working at unbelievably great internships and some guys will go home. We want to make sure they stay in touch and encourage each other all through the summer so they come back bigger, faster and stronger. We have the VFT on the first day and we want them all to pass it, including myself.”
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