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Princeton University Athletics
Roger Hughes, Football Team Meet With Press On Media Day
September 04, 2002 | Football
Sept. 4, 2002
Princeton, N.J. - Following its first five days of camp, the Princeton football team and staff met with the local media on Wednesday, Sept. 4 for its annual Media Day. Princeton, picked second in the Ivy League preseason media poll, has already dealt with an array of weather conditions, but has gotten in a number of good practices en route to the season opener on Sept. 21.
Camp opened Aug. 30 with an all-freshman practice in the morning, while the upperclassmen were doing fitness tests at the same time. By the afternoon, head coach Roger Hughes and his staff got their first look at the 2002 Princeton football team together on the field. While the team has spent much of the first week with two practices each day, it did stop during Wednesday afternoon to meet with the local media.
The following are some quotes from the coaches press conference, which featured head coach Roger Hughes, offensive coordinator Dave Rackovan and defensive coordinator Steve Verbit.
Coach Hughes:
"It is still early in the preseason and there are still a lot of questions to be answered. We are optimistic about the upcoming season and will use this weekend to judge where we are. There are holes to fill. We do have a lot of very athletic guys and the attitude of this year's group is great."
"By the time we play Lehigh, they will have had two games under their belt. We are going to use the scrimmage against Columbia this Saturday as our preseason game. Hopefully because we have so many experienced players, the early jitters won't be so bad. We are going to use Saturday to work on a lot of different situations and work through many possibilities."
"We like our team. We are certainly pleased with the weight training that our guys went through this summer and we like how they've been practicing. We have to keep the confidence level up and stay healthy. We are also going to need the young guys to step up. We have to step out on the field and expect to win. We have to play to win. Ninety percent of the battle is expecting that you can do it, then picking the right plays and executing them."
Coach Rackovan:
"The process can be sped up. We came to camp and were able start where we ended last year. We can start at the level we were at the end of the spring, not take a step backwards. In this league it all comes down to who can get healthy, stay healthy and get on a roll."
Coach Verbit:
"We have a lot of veterans on the defensive side of the football. The thing that is going to help us is plying more people. That is going to help us as it gets later into the game. We had guys taking 70-80 snaps last year. This year the rotation is going to be such that each should get 40-50 snaps. That will allow us to stay fresh later into the game."