The Delaware State Football team completed its spring drills on Saturday with a scrimmage at Alumni Stadium. Head Coach Kenny Carter is entering his second season with the Hornets. The challenge for Carter is to elevate a program that has not experienced a winning season this decade. WBOC’s Krystle Rich spoke with Carter on the eve of the spring game for The Interview of the Week.
Rich: How do you assess the 2016 spring practice?
Carter: Spring practice has been fantastic. Our roster has changed drastically. There were players that were injured last season and we got them back. Those who were hurt this spring are now getting healthy. There were those players who had to have some procedures done coming out of last season. The biggest thing is that we are really excited is that our roster is changing due to 50 new players, the signees, and walk-ons.
Rich: Was the change part of your plan when you arrived last year?
Carter: Yes, that is how it works for us because of gender equity and just the things we had to do to transition our roster we knew it would be a big swing after the first year.
Rich: What are some of the things you have worked on this off-season?
Carter: Well first of all we are working on getting the players stronger and spending time in the weight room. We are doing different things conditioning wise and we do something football wise at least two days a week. I have position meetings with the coaches during the NCAA allotted time. Then we start working on opponents and watching other people to see what we can learn from them.
Rich: What were you looking to get out of the spring game?
Carter: For us the spring game is the last practice. Because of where we are with the offensive line, we don’t have as many guys healthy. Basically it was just another scrimmage. It was not different than what we did prior to the last practice going into 2015’s last game. We might put in 110 plays but I don’t think we used that many.
Rich: Let’s talk quarterback you have a couple you are looking at for playing time this season.
Carter: Kobie (Lane) has done a terrific job. He has done a great job developing himself in the classroom which was something he really needed to work on over the course of time. He has grown and now understands what his weaknesses were and he has developed physically.
Dan (Epperson) is fantastic. We are really really happy with Dan. Dan is pushing Kobie and both will play. We’ll play both quarterbacks.
Rich: Are you looking to use a two quarterback system?
Carter: Right now coming out of spring that is the way it is going to be because they both have earned the right to play.
Rich: Is there a player under the radar that we should keep our eye on?
Carter: I would say Kesselly Tyler (running back) is a guy who is going to stick out and we also think Jacob Jones is going to help us quite a bit.
