CFL.ca
Fraser Caldwell
Ticats.ca
With his rookie players preparing to take to the field on Thursday to kick off their training camp experience, Ticats Head Coach and Director of Football Operations George Cortez emphasizes that the priority at this early stage of the 2012 campaign is education rather than evaluation.
Cortez addressed members of the media outside his team’s training camp headquarters at McMaster on Wednesday afternoon, while players continued to arrive and gain their bearings as they prepare for the 18-day evaluation process.
The coach used the opportunity to reiterate that the primary purpose of his early rookie-centered sessions is to familiarize the fresh faces with their surroundings.
“Some of these guys were at the OTAs, so they have a bit of a leg up on the guys who weren’t,” said Cortez of the first-year contingent. “But part of this process is for the guys who are having their first look at what’s going on, and it’s very educational for them. We want, when we start on Sunday, for it to be the second time that these guys have heard from us, so that when they hit the field on Sunday morning they don’t have eyes the size of silver dollars and their jaws down around their chins.”
“They know pretty much how we’re going to practice and where their spots are. So they have a chance to show what they can do and not spend three or four days getting acclimatized to what’s going on.”
Cortez indicated that the only area of evaluation during the abbreviated rookie session is at the quarterback position, where the team will look to trim its current crop of recruits by one. By the onset of main camp on Sunday, two members of the recently acquired trio of Tate Forcier, Sedrick Harris and Nick Fanuzzi will be chosen to join Ticat incumbents Henry Burris and Quinton Porter at pivot.
Once that 18-day evaluation period gets underway, Ticat hopefuls will experience preseason training in a new format, as Cortez has eliminated the traditional, single “power practice” in favour of a two-a-day scheme. He explained that the decision to pursue two-a-days was made to maximize his players ability to learn and minimize wasted training time.
“I think it’s the best way to learn,” said Cortez of the two-a-day schedule. “You practice and then meet – practice and then meet – as opposed to practicing for a longer time and having the meeting at the end. I’ve done that before and saw that there was a lot of ‘survival mode’ going on in the latter part of the practice.”
“Even though you take a break in-between, you don’t have the time to correct what you screwed up in the first part of practice before the second part because you don’t meet. I just think it (the current schedule) is a better learning situation.”
Choosing the training style that maximizes learning is crucial, because as Cortez explains, building the players’ familiarity with the team’s systems – or installing – is the crux of training camp.
“Installation is the only issue in training camp,” said the Ticat bench boss. “We’re trying to evaluate guys. When we install beginning on Sunday, the things that we install will be the things that we use in the first preseason game and the second. We’re not trying to trick our players. We’re trying to make it simple for them so that they can demonstrate their skill.”
“Obviously, it’s important that they learn. We don’t want to have a cute little formation that we maybe only practice once or twice. We want to be doing the things in the preseason that we’ve been practicing so that they can show us how they can play.”
The learning process begins on Thursday when the spotlight turns to the Ticats’ first-year hopefuls, with the remainder of the Black and Gold due to hit the training field on Sunday.
