Wake Forest Athletics
Josh Gattis' Preseason Postcard
8/24/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 24, 2005
Editor's Note: Throughout the preseason, junior free safety Josh Gattis will be giving Deacon fans a glimpse of life inside preseason camp in the series, "Josh Gattis' Preseason Postcards."
About Gattis: Gattis started at free safety in all 11 games in 2004. He was the team's second-leading tackler with 71 stops and one of four defensive players to start every game. Defensive coordinator Dean Hood says having Gattis in the secondary is like having a coach on the field.
Tuesday, August 23
Today's practice was held in the morning and it was actually our last official camp practice. Everyone appreciated how nice it was to end camp, especially on such a nice weather day. Ending camp means two things, we're done with all of the hard work and two-a-day practices, and it means its time to switch our focus from ourselves to Vandy which is in 8 more days.
Everyone is also anticipating classes starting Wednesday as we all like to approach each semester like a season with a clean slate, and we're all excited to see some new faces around after what we started believing was a ghost campus.
Practice was very similar to a game week practice. We did not do a lot of team, but instead we split up the freshmen into scout units as both the offense and defenses prepared for Vandy. Nobody takes a game week light, but as a team we still flew around in practice making plays regardless if we're facing our scout unit or Vandy. As always in practice, special teams was a major focus of the practice as we began preparing for Vandy's special teams units as well. This might be the most important part of practice because games are won not because someone gives up the most points or scores the most, but because of the special teams game. Like Coach Grobe always says "You can see if a team is ready to play, by looking at their first play on special teams. It sets the tone for a game."
After practice ended we continued to condition like always but because of the nice weather Coach decided to give us four gassers to start off our work week.
In the afternoon, we came back to the offices to get a great lift, and meet and watch film. It's always good to lift during camp because it works some soreness out of you. For guys like, Jason Pratt and Robert Simmons its lets them do some extra curls so they can wear the cutoff T-shirts the first day of classes.
Eight more days, and you'll hear the motorcycles roaring, fans cheering, and helmets clashing and the 2005 season is here. The Rush is On.................
