ELON, N.C. – The first practice of Elon football's preseason camp was held on Thursday night, Aug. 6, on the Hunt and Tucker practice fields. The session was threatened by storms, but the weather held off other than some light rain near the end of the two-hour practice.

Phoenix head coach Rich Skrosky, in his second season at the helm of the Elon program, was pleased with his squad's energy and effort on night one. Here were his thoughts following the first practice of camp.

On overall thoughts on day one:
"We changed a couple things up. We gave the kids some more ownership of some stuff. I thought we came out with good enthusiasm, but it is the first practice and that needs to sustain itself. That's always hard during camp. We have a lot of young kids. But their energy was good. I think the challenge, to me and the staff, is because we have so many young guys, we have to make sure that we don't take anything for granted with the young guys. That's from the way they stretch, to where they line up, to running to the football, to getting to the right drill with effort. The staff was on point and had good enthusiasm. Having every guy back on staff is huge, especially with this influx of young guys. The older guys ran around pretty good. We pitched and caught it pretty good. The first defense looked pretty good. Overall, it was a good first day."

On the players taking a bigger leadership role:
"We have to make sure that guys are coaching. Not just the coaches, but Rob Sullivan has to be coaching Daniel Everett. That, I saw more tonight than in the year I've been here. It could be they are more comfortable in what they're doing that they have the confidence to speak up to other guys. At the end of practice, we're going to have one of the players come up and talk to the team. They're going to talk to the team about what they thought the energy of the practice was, what they thought the execution of the practice was and what they thought the overall atmosphere of the practice was. Julius Moore did it tonight and did a good job."

On how the large number of new players will change the pace of practice:
"We're not going to slow down for them. That's where I'm putting pressure on the coaches and I'm putting pressure on the older guys to bring those guys along with us. We know at the wide out spot what it is. We've got several freshmen in there. They don't have a choice. We're in a position, where some of these freshmen are going to have to play like sophomores. Tre Lennon's got to be able to pick up Corey Joyner and so on and so forth. We're not going to slow down for them. I told the coaches, I don't want to hear 'they're not ready.' Let's get them ready. If we have to adjust schematically, we will, but we're not going to slow down. Our tempo tonight was pretty good."

Upcoming 2015 Elon Phoenix Preseason Practice Schedule
Fri., Aug. 7 at 2:15 p.m.
Sat., Aug. 8 at 2:15 p.m.
Sun., Aug. 9 at 3 p.m.
Mon., Aug. 10 at 2:15 p.m.
Tues., Aug. 11 at 2:15 p.m.
Thurs., Aug. 13 at 8 a.m.
Thurs., Aug. 13 at 7:15 p.m.
Fri., Aug. 14 at 7 p.m. (Rhodes Stadium)
Sat., Aug. 15 at 2:15 p.m.
Sun., Aug. 16 at 8 a.m.
Sun., Aug. 16 at 7:15 p.m.
Tues., Aug. 18 at 7:15 p.m. (Rhodes Stadium)
Wed., Aug. 19 at 2:15 p.m.
Thurs., Aug. 20 at 8 a.m.
Thurs., Aug. 20 at 7:15 p.m.
Sat., Aug. 22 at 3 p.m. (Rhodes Stadium)
Sun., Aug. 23 at 2:15 p.m.
Mon., Aug. 24 at 8:15 a.m.
Mon., Aug. 24 at 7:45 p.m.
* Thurs., Aug. 27 at 4:05 p.m. (Rhodes Stadium)
*After classes have started