 Welcome everybody to the Ed Hoddle show for the first week of the 2023 season as the Mustangs get set for their opener Thursday night football in the garden state as they take on the props of Rowan. I'm James Wagner, assistant athletic director for athletic communications joined here by coach Ed Hoddle and Ed another season started preseason winding up how to preseason go for you guys. I went well you know I thought we got out of the preseason relatively healthy some bumps and bruises etc but overall pretty pleased with the work we were able to get done and how healthy we came out of it. Well great you had two scrimmages obviously you had one against Bridgewater, one against Shenandoah and now you're getting ready for a live opponent. How did those two scrimmages go? Well I think it was it actually played itself out very well for us having to get on a bus and go get off a bus and play. We've got a couple of day trips on the schedule later on in the year and obviously the opener being a day trip so it was kind of a dress rehearsal for that type of scenario you know much of our Mac travel about 65% is overnight so it's hotel it's a different type of schedule so obviously both of those teams have been historically pretty good they're both of them are very physical and I think again it suits what we're going to see at Rowan very well tomorrow night. Well let's talk about the obviously the three parts of the game first let's talk about the offensive unit what can we expect out of the Mustang's offensive this year? We want to be efficient offensively you know we want to execute the game plan we want to be efficient in what we're doing and we want to move the chains you know that really is as simple as it gets obviously you know we don't want to turn the ball over those fundamental type game changing type things that can happen to you but really we want to be efficient in what we do we want to be calculated in what we do and you know I think our offense is fun there's some fun elements to our offense as well so that's kind of what we envision the season looking like. Now let's talk about the defensive unit obviously good offense kind of a good defense as well what's what can we expect on the defensive side of the ball? You know lots of experience returning defensively we're certainly excited about it you know it's it's going to be an interesting mix of guys from time to time guys playing some different positions at times that what we had seen them do before might see some defensive linemen back in coverage from time to time which is certainly exciting for them so you know a little bit of a different scheme but again you know being fundamentally sound flying to the football tackling well you know first games are notorious for poor tackling because the way we've evolved practice and we've kind of kept an eye on that as we've gone through the preseason so going to be an exciting year for that side of the ball for sure. And finally talk about the special teams. Special teams have to be special you know we drill those guys all the time in different scenarios you know their practice is much different than most everybody else's you know we work bad snaps we work good snaps we work high snaps we work low snaps you know tried out a bunch of different guys in different scenarios throughout camp so you know again you know having you know Brody back you know certainly he's going to help us as a fifth year having Zach Rush back is certainly going to help us you know the punter you know he's going to be a rookie so you know he's got to overcome those jitters his first punt is in fact against Shenandoah I think I the quote is they're really big and really fast and I said yeah man that's that's college football so he's done a heck of a job so far during the preseason and we're excited about him and talk about that with the with obviously the freshman coming in getting adjusted obviously at the preseason the two scrimmages how they adapted to playing college football. It's far from finished you know a lot of them you know really getting going through the homesick piece the adjustment piece I'm responsible for all of this and you know it's interesting because my son is also away at school for the first time and some of the conversations that I've had with him or the exact same conversations I'm having with our guys but really good strong class talent wise we're certainly excited about the future and you know you may see some of those guys actually getting an opportunity to play tomorrow night. And then two parts talk about the schedule first obviously this year with the loss of Lyco and Wilkes you're gonna play everybody in the Mac so you know how does it feel to play everybody in your conference in one season. It's certainly exciting you know to rekindle some of the matchups you know I don't think we've seen LeBal in a couple years I don't think we've seen Albright in a couple of years. You know a little bit frustrating from from my perspective I was a big advocate you know let's get bigger let's add more teams let's go two sides you know it's a little bit a little bit of frustration on that part I you know I prefer that the two non-conference game scenario obviously to set yourself up for postseason but again what's better for the conference this is what the conference thinks is the best and certainly I'm behind in a hundred percent but you know again getting back to you know kind of the way the league was in 14-15 you know when we first came in you know every Saturday's a slugfest and we're certainly excited about it. And we'll talk about tonight's opponent Rowan obviously Rowan a very good program you know nationally known Jay Korty there's a great job up there what can we expect out of the profs tonight. Physical fast athletic well coached and they're going to be really sound in what they do so for us again it's about being efficient it's about you know managing mistakes they think a lot of the first game stuff is managing the mistakes keeping turnovers to an absolute minimum keeping you know pre and post snap penalties to an absolute minimum you know the formational stuff some of the emotional stuff post snap you know keeping those jitters and some of those first game things in check typically will dictate who the outcome of the game. And obviously you know one more question I have for you playing on Thursday night obviously it's fun and exciting but that does present any challenges in getting ready for a game like this. Not necessarily because for me today's Friday right you know we kind of go back you know from week one into camp and start okay well this is Monday this is Tuesday this is Wednesday of course I know it's Wednesday but in my mind it's very much Friday and the mind of the guys it's very much Friday the real bonus becomes the extra rest day Friday Saturday right you know heading into week two it does present some academic challenges guys are going to miss class this is the only time all year that we'll actually miss class and you know we've done this before and it's exciting to be I think we are the first game to kick off in all of division three if I'm not mistaken so there's everybody's going to be tuned in so hopefully we'll play our best and have some success. Well good luck team we'll talk to you next week. Thank you. James Weidner with Ed Hoddle week number one of the Ed Hoddle show we'll talk to you next week as the Mustangs get ready for the Flying Dutchman 11 and Valley as always Ghostangs.