Eagles Begin Game Week Preparations for Season Opener

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. — The Carson-Newman football team moved away from the hard hitting of fall camp and shifted to game preparation during Friday’s two-hour practice at Burke-Tarr Stadium.

With the Eagles’ season opener at Winona State (Minn.) set for next Thursday, C-N coach Ken Sparks said it’s time for his team to focus on preparing for a difficult matchup to kick off the 2009 campaign.

“We are trying to polish things up and eliminate all of the cobwebs and get everything ready for game speed and execution,” said Sparks, who is in his 30th season at the helm of the C-N program. “It’s great when you are out here on the practice field and you get to do everything over and over, but when you get in a situation and the clock is running, it’s a little bit different when live bullets are coming at you.”

“(Winona State) is a good football team. We will have to go earn what we get. They are not going to give us anything. It will be a good challenge for us.”

A common concern for most teams coming out of fall camp is the overall health of the team. However, Sparks said injuries haven’t been much of a problem for his squad this preseason.

“We’ve got some turned ankles and things,” he said. “But we are fortunate to be where we are physically, with the possibility of not leaving too many people at home for the first ballgame.”

One of the biggest questions that remains in Sparks’ mind heading into the opener is whether or not his team will show up mentally prepared to do the things required of it to win at a stadium nearly 900 miles away.

“Some of our players are just now getting used to the bed they are sleeping in here and we are going to take them on a long road trip and let them sleep in a different one before we play,” Sparks said. “You are also concerned because some of them have probably never been on a plane before. It’s just little things like that.”

“There’s always that question mark of how are we going to respond under certain circumstances. You’ve physically got to be ready but you also have to be mentally ready to get everything done that you need to get done without mistakes. When you are playing a long ways away from home at a place that you’ve never played before, you have to make sure that doesn’t work against you.”

The Eagles will practice on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday before departing for Minnesota on Wednesday. Kickoff for Thursday’s opener against Winona State is set for 8 p.m. Eastern.