Tulsa Begins Spring Football Practice on Tuesday
3/1/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
March 1, 2004
Tulsa, Oklahoma - The Tulsa football team will open spring drills on Tuesday, March 2, only two months after playing in the school's first bowl game in 12 years. The Golden Hurricane culminated college football's best turnaround of the 2003 season with an appearance in the Humanitarian Bowl on January 3.
Tulsa completed the 2003 campaign with an 8-5 overall record and finished in second place in the Western Athletic Conference with a 6-2 mark.
The Hurricane will practice seven times before departing for spring break on Friday, March 12. After a 11-day layoff, the Hurricane will return to the practice field on March 23 for the first of eight more workout sessions. Tulsa will conclude spring drills on Saturday, April 3 with the Annual Spring Game.
Head Coach Steve Kragthorpe welcomes back 44 letterwinners, including 22 on offense, 20 on defense and two specialists. Tulsa returns eight starters on offense and nine starters to the defensive side of the ball.
"We're anxious to get back and start playing football," said Kragthorpe. "Obviously, one of the advantages that we had this year is that we played until January 3rd, so we've gone only eight weeks without playing football. The advantage there is that things are still fresh in our minds. The things we did well in the 2003 season we need to continue to do well, while some areas we've diagnosed where we need to improve, we can set our nose to the grindstone and use these 15 spring practices to address those areas."
"The reason we structured spring practice the way we did around spring break is that it will allow us to be more physical and to do a little more hitting than we did last spring or in fall training camp. We need to be a more physical football team," said Kragthorpe.
Tulsa returns two all-conference performers on offense including quarterback James Kilian and tight end Garrett Mills, while four all-WAC players are back on defense including WAC Freshman of the Year Nick Bunting at linebacker, as well as defensive backs Jermaine Hope and Kedrick Alexander and linebacker Michael LeDet. Mills was a first-team performer on offense, while Kilian earned second-team honors.
"We lose some good football players. We have to find a left tackle, since we lose Austin Chadwick, and we lose our most productive wide receiver in Romby Bryant. Those are two areas we need to address on the offensive side of the football," said Kragthorpe. "On defense, we lose some quality lineman that we have to replace. And we need to continue to find more quality defensive linemen that can play."
Last year, Kilian completed 57-percent of his passes for 2,217 yards and 22 touchdowns, while running for another 605 yards and seven TDs. Mills had a team-leading 53 receptions and tallied 456 yards and a team-leading 10 receiving touchdowns. In addition to Mills, the Hurricane returns seven other receivers that totaled 1,187 yards and five touchdowns a year ago. Junior running back Uril Parrish, who suffered a knee injury against UTEP and missed the final four games, rushed for 537 yards and five TDs before the injury sidelined him.
On defense, Alexander is the team's leading returning tackler as he collected 121 stops in the 2003 season. LeDet was next with 91 tackles and nine stops for -58 yards. Bunting, safety Shannon Carter, and Hope each totaled over 70 tackles apiece. Bunting had 79 stops, followed by Carter with 76 and three interceptions, while Hope had 75 tackles and a team-leading 12 pass breakups.
The Hurricane added five junior college transfers at semester break, including offensive linemen Jeff Bryant and Mike Mengers, receiver Ashlan Davis, defensive lineman Charles Walker and deep snapper Morgan Guidry.
"We brought in five junior college transfers and we felt it was important that they be guys that could come in and be involved in spring practice and our winter workout program," said Kragthorpe. "We expect these junior college players to come in and be counted on to provide us with some instant fire power, so we needed them to be here learning the system."
Whereas a year ago, Kragthorpe and his coaching staff did not decide on a depth chart until a week prior to the first game, that's not necessarily the case this year.
"Our approach this year, is that we have a little bit better feel for the personnel we have," added Kragthorpe. "Some guys stepped up and assumed the role of starter. Those guys will start the spring in that position because they earned the right to do that throughout the course of last season, and yet by the same token, the general philosophy doesn't change. The best players are going to play. So, just because you begin the spring as a starter, doesn't necessarily guarantee that you'll conclude the spring as a starter."
The 15 practice dates are: March 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 23, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31 and April 2 and 3. The weekday practices are scheduled for 4:30 p.m., while Saturday practice times will vary. The spring game is scheduled for April 3 in Skelly Stadium at 11:00 a.m. Spring practices are open to the public.
