St. Andrews football officially begins practice

LAURINBURG — St. Andrews head football coach Bob Curtin doesn’t believe he’s ever been completely prepared for anything in his life. But when his players fully understand that they can “go out and have fun, fly around and just play football,” he believes his team will be.

That’s been the message that Curtin and the St. Andrews coaching staff have voiced to their players throughout practice, which officially began for the St. Andrews University football team on Saturday.

“That’s what we strive for,” Curtin said. “We never really hit that, but that’s the goal. When we get to that point, I’ll (say) that we are completely prepared.”

Saturday’s first official day of practice was a walkthrough practice for Curtin’s team. But on Sunday, the Knights had their first official contact practice of the 2023 season at the team’s practice field.

“The first couple of days (of practice) is always ensuring that we get the new guys, the transfers, the freshmen integrated into the way we do things here at St. Andrews,” Curtin said. “And the kids are doing great. It’s only day four and we’re getting a little bit better each and every day. So that’s important to me.”

The Knights are coming off of a 1-10 overall record in 2022, the program’s worst mark since St. Andrews’ inaugural season in 2017. But with Curtin entering his second season as the team’s head coach, the returning players have been able to get a full season under their belts with Curtin’s system and staff.

“When we first came in last year, we didn’t really know what was going on,” senior offensive lineman Marvin Farmer said. “The whole coaching staff, we had a whole new one, so we didn’t really know what to expect. We came in, we had our struggles with learning the playbooks from a new coaching staff. So really the energy now is a lot better. I mean, the young guys that came in, they’re out here, they’re learning the plays. They’re doing a lot better than what we did our first three days of practice (last year). So, it’s looking really good right now.”

“With the returners that we have, almost 50 of them, they understand the expectation,” Curtin said. “We’re a lot more disciplined, we’re a lot more precise in our movements and you can’t mimic that precision until you do it the way it needs to be done over and over again and then you can progress and move on to the next obstacle or challenge.”

A big challenge for the Knights this offseason has been deciding who will replace Andrew Fowler, the team’s starting quarterback last season.

Curtin said it’s been a battle between six signal-callers in their first year on the team — Jalen Dodd, Mason Price, Dylan O’Banks, Darius Holly, Matthew Douyon and Blaydon Blake.

“I think in a couple days, we’ll start to see some separation,” Curtin said. “I think the level of competition is really, really good. They’re picking it up fast, incredibly athletic. It’s going to be a great quarterback race down the way.”

The Knights have had several young players step up at other positions during the 2-hour-and-10-minute practices, which Farmer believes comes from excellent recruiting.

“They did what they had to do on the recruiting side,” Farmer said. “They’re showing what they can do out here. They’re still fighting, everybody fighting for position right now, and that’s good. Nobody’s trying to hold up on nobody. Everybody’s trying to fight for one.”

Curtin and his staff will look to decide on their starters before the team’s season opener on Aug. 26 against Webber International (Fl.) in Laurinburg.

“Webber (International) is a really good team,” Curtin said. “They’ve turned things around. We’ve got a lot of young players, as you look through our roster. But…we will put our guys in a position to be successful. I’m the type of guy that likes to work until the last minute and just to make sure that things are done in such a fashion. The old saying, don’t work till you get it right, work till you can’t get it wrong type of mentality. I think we will be prepared to compete on our opening day.”