Georgetown’s football team is coming into the 2006 season with a new leader and a new attitude. Coach Kevin Kelly will be at the helm with headphones on and clipboard in hand coaching this team towards what he hopes to be their first winning season since joining the Patriot League in 2000.
This football lifer and former Navy special teams coach came aboard the USS Blue and Grey in January and hasn’t stopped moving since. After a hectic recruiting season in the winter and hiring his coaching staff, it was a busy time to say the least. On top of all that he had to say goodbye to some returning seniors at Navy who he had tutored in the art of the gridiron over the last three years. But you won’t catch him complaining.
“It was tough, but when I walked on campus here I saw a ton of potential,” Kelly said. “I saw the footprint for the stadium; it’s a great location right in the center of campus. Academically, Georgetown is one of the best in the country so I felt like we can recruit terrific student athletes nationwide.”
Some of those recruits will see playing time in their first ever college game, a testament to the recruiting job done by Kelly and the athletes he was able to lure to the Hilltop. To get to the point where 18-year-olds can play with 20-somethings in the Patriot League, they need to possess some of the intangibles that Kelly, their recruiter, brings to the table as a coach. It’s this new attitude, a new understanding of the game and the effort needed to be successful at it. According to Kelly it’s a specific kind of effort.
“It’s what I call Fanatical Effort,” Kelly said. “We’re focused on how we play. We want to play hard on every snap and know what we’re doing. If you know where to line up, know your assignment and run like heck, we are going to do some good things. If we have fanatical effort in everything that we do, we should be successful.”
The returning Hoya football players have learned to play with this same type of fanatical effort which they are reminded of every time they work out and wear their Hoya Football shirts with a bolded FE on the back. It’s beginning to look like a whole new team, starting with the new coach, new stadium and even new Nike jerseys. According to the players, there’s already a world of difference between this year’s club and the 2005 squad.
“Coach Kelly came in and the whole attitude towards the program has changed a lot,” said senior offensive right tackle and captain Liam Grubb. “Everyone’s taking a whole different approach to what they’re doing. We’re going to be a lot more aggressive on offense especially. We scored zero points in the first quarter all year last year.”
The fact of the matter is that the play on the field needs to change too for the padded G-men to improve from their 4-7 record last year. Coach Kelly is expecting a lot more in his first year.
“That’s in the past,” Kelly said. “Yes, they were a good defensive football team, but I told them it wasn’t good enough. They didn’t win enough football games. Obviously they didn’t keep the opposing team out of the end zone enough.”
Kelly’s high expectations and fanatical attitude refocusing will try to make Georgetown a football school for a few months before Hoya Paranoia strikes.
“We’re trying to create a home field advantage,” said Kelly. “If you start winning games, people are going to want to come watch you play. We’re going to have an exciting brand of football, and we’re going to be an aggressive football team. I think those things will excite people, and they’ll come out to games.”
Only time will tell if the fanatical effort on the field will turn into fanaticism in the stands, but if Coach Kelly’s first few months on the job are any indication, this former Midshipman has his team sailing the right course.
