'It's Just Time To Go To Work'
August 03, 2023 | Football
STARKVILLE – Heat indexes reaching triple digits in the deep South are a sure sign that football is right around the corner.
Mississippi State reported back to campus on Thursday and will officially open preseason camp on Friday morning at 9:45 a.m.
However, do not expect first-year head coach Zach Arnett to spend much time sharing motivational tactics with the Bulldogs during their first team meeting on Thursday afternoon. It's simply time to get started.
"In my opinion, there's no sense in a lot of clichés or long speeches," Arnett said. "What we put on film is what will speak about us as a football team. It's just time to go to work."
MSU returns 36 letterwinners from last season's squad that went 9-4 and won the ReliaQuest Bowl. The Bulldogs bring back seven starters on offense featuring three-year starting quarterback Will Rogers and running back Jo'Quavious Marks along with four linemen. Defensively, State has five starters returning including the SEC's top two tacklers in Jett Johnson and Nathaniel Watson.
The Bulldogs' practice on Friday starts a string of six straight days of work before a break next Thursday. Arnett has 11 practices planned prior to the players beginning classes on Aug. 16.
"During training camp from sunup to sundown, it's football all the time," Arnett said. "It's football bootcamp. We've got a lot of newcomers and for them it's Football 101. From the morning light until late in the evening, it'll be nothing but football and that's what we like because it's what we do."
One tradition that Arnett is implementing back into the training camp schedule this year is taking the team across campus to practice at South Farm for a few days. Arnett decided the old school approach of a venue change midway through camp was a good idea after speaking with former players and coaches within the program.
"You always remember the difficult tasks and the adversity you had to overcome, that's what you're proud of as a former player," Arnett said. "I've talked to a lot of former players and they talk about those South Farm practices as the dog days of camp where you separated the men from the boys and that's something that they're proud of. That's going to give us a right of passage around here.
"I love the fact that we can go out there away from all the comforts and conveniences of the wonderful facilities that we're in. It almost takes you back to your high school days where there's a grass field and we're going to put a ball down and find out who the best player is. You don't need all the fancy stuff. We're going to do it again, again and again and hopefully develop the heart of our football team out of that."
Mississippi State will hold three scrimmages and 25 total practices leading into the season opener against Southeastern Louisiana on Sept. 2.
"If we come out of camp and feel like we can put 22 guys out there on either side of the ball that are going to play with great effort, intensity and physicality no matter what and are competing to the best of their ability, then it will have been a successful training camp," Arnett said.
