Barrenechea Embraces New Challenge

Ticats.ca
Justin Dunk

Imagine having your world flipped upside down. Right was left, up was down, forward was backwards and you were forced to go against instincts that you have been developing for your entire career.

After a full week of training camp at fullback, former Ticats linebacker Agustin Barrenechea is trying to get settled into his role on the other side of the football and reverese many of the techniques he has been developing his entire football career as a defensive player.

“Everyday I’m just working and grinding and trying to get better, obviously everything is quite new to me, but I have some good coaches and good vets trying to make it easier,” Barrenechea said after a quick practice session on Friday morning.

The University of Calgary product spent his first eight seasons in the CFL as a linebacker and made the switch to fullback officially at the Ticats mini-camp practices in April.

Barrenechea has been forced to change his mentality and learn what used to be a foreign language during his time as a linebacker.

“I definitely have to do my homework on the offensive playbook because of the terminology, it was a lot more natural for me on defence,” Barrenechea said. “Defensively you’re always reacting, you react to what you see.  However, offensively, you get to dictate, but at the same time you need to adjust based on what you see.”

“Things look completely upside down to him,” running backs coach Rick Worman said.

The new full back uses every practice and each rep he takes to hone the skills needed to excel in his new offensive world.

“We’ve been focusing on technique and how he’s delivering the alignments and carrying through his assignments,” Worman said. 

Although, Barrenechea does believe he was born to excel in one aspect of the full back position – catching the football.

“Natural, that’s all natural,” he said while trying to keep a straight face.

Barrenechea has enjoyed working with the other fullbacks at training camp and is focused on performing to the potential his position coach expects of each back.

“He’s on us and he expects us to compete at a very high level and he’s giving us all the tools and the coaching in the film room, and the class room, to working in our individual periods during practice,” Barrenechea said. “The three of us, Daryl [Stephenson], Darcy [Brown] and myself we all work together quite well. It’s been a positive work group.”

Barrenechea is as tough as they come and the thirst for delivering a blow is one of the few traits which does carry over in his transition from the linebacker spot, and his position coach is curious to see what his new protégé will look like come live action.

“He’s not afraid of contact, he likes to hit people,” Worman said. “I think he has taken on the challenge and embraced it and I’m excited to see how he does in game day situations.”

Worman makes sure his group has a grasp of what the offence is installing everyday.

“I have a high standard of excellence that I demand out of them, so we don’t leave meetings until everyone is comfortable and knows what they’re going to do the next day in practice,” he said.

Meanwhile, Barrenechea likes the pace the offence has set so far at camp.

“The double huddle is nice, it sets the tempo and makes it more realistic to a game atmosphere,” Barrenechea said.

While trying to keep up with the pace of the offence, Barrenechea is focused on evolving into the best full back he can be.

“My entire craft all together, it’s a new skill set and everyday I want to work on something, from proper footwork, to hand placement, to positioning and awareness and knowledge of the offence.”

BLACK AND GOLD DAY TOMORROW!

TRAINING CAMP NOTES

• Three players took the field with new digits on their jerseys today.  Reciever London Crawford (formerly 89) is now #17, receiver Jordan Watson (77) is now 82 and running back Terry Grant (40) will wear #21.
• The sick bay was full today, with DE Stevie Baggs, LB Yannick Carter, WR London Crawford, LB Brandon Denson, WR Jay Diston, DB Daniel Francis, WR Dave Stala, WR Chris Williams and DB Ray Wladichuk sitting out.