Last week was something different for Tyrone Shorter and the Louisville Wildcats.
Despite the fact that Shorter spent the spring with the Wildcat football players as well as the summer, it was the beginning of his first fall camp with the team. Though it’s a little different than the many years that he spent starting things off each fall with the Noxubee County Tigers, the same goal was in mind when he began the opening practice.
“The first couple of days have been great. On Monday the kids were into it and we picked up where we left off from the spring and summer. They responded really well,” Shorter said.
Shorter enters his tenure at Louisville taking over a state championship program from a year ago and he felt it was an obvious step up to make the move from a place where he’s won multiple state titles himself.
He wouldn’t have left that opportunity for Louisville if he didn’t feel confident in the players he was inheriting. The first few months of action with the players has proven him right that he was going to have a good bit of talent in which to work with on the field and they have the right mindset.
“The transition has been great because it’s not like you have to come in and you’re trying to establish a winning attitude because it’s here,” Shorter said. “They already have that because they know how to win. That was the easy part. The hardest part was getting them to trust me and the coaching staff. Once we got settled, everything else is so much easier.”
One of the main things that Shorter wants to do through the first few weeks of practice is stay healthy. He said that so far everything looks good for his team health wise with a couple of wide receivers banged up in the opening day of practice but nothing too serious.
Louisville hosts a jamboree this weekend. The Wildcats face Philadelphia at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Look for the full breakdown of the schedule in this week’s Prep Notebook that can be found elsewhere in the paper.
