CONFIDENT DANES
University at Albany football starts training camp Friday with story lines filling the backfield
ALBANY » The University at Albany football program gears up for another fall this Friday as training camp begins and the Great Danes get to dawn the purple and yellow for another season.
“It’s exciting,” said Head Coach Greg Gattuso. “We’ve got a good group of returners back. We’ve added some people that can help us. We have some losses we have got to recover from. High school, college, and pro, everybody goes through the same process.”
Gattuso enters his fifth season as the head coach. He brings on a new offensive coordinator in Joe Davis and now has co-defensive Coordinators in Joe Bernard and Keith Dudzinski.
There are a lot of story lines surging through the Great Danes this season, but the most exciting has to be the return of Elijah Ibitokun-Hanks at running back.
Ibitokun-Hanks is coming off a knee injury that sidelined him for most of the 2017 season, but the 2016 CAA leading rusher is back and functioning at 110 percent.
“I’m back,” said IbitokunHanks. “I didn’t change much,
I am the same EB. The injury is just more motivation to come back. Everybody in the CAA counted me out, they probably don’t remember who I am so it’s time to show them that I am back and better than ever.”
Ibitokun-Hanks is a confident guy, You can see it in how her walks, the professionalism in his voice, and of course what he does on the field.
To help make IbitokunHanks feel even more confident, he now has the assistance from Karl Mofor. Mofor stepped up last season in a big way at the running back position.
“We have all the confidence in the world,” said Ibitokun-Hanks.”No matter who is in there we are going to do what we have to do.”
Mofor ran for 555 yards and six touchdowns as a true freshman with the Great Danes.
That two headed monster will be working under the new offensive coordinator Davis, who comes to Albany from Fordham University where he spent two years. Davis will have the chance to play with weapons in both Mofor and Ibitokun-Hanks behind an offensive line that now has a year of experience together.
“That’s what excites me most about this football team the most,” said Davis. “When you can play great defense, and you can run the football, you’re probably going to have a shot. — those guys are going to be a huge part of our offense.”
It’s good for Davis to have two established running backs in his backfield to inherit. It allows for trust and communication between the line and the backfield to already be established as he joins the program. But, Davis doesn’t come into a situation that is all sunshine and rainbows. He has a big decision to make, and that decision is the story of Great Dane football this fall.
Davis and Gattuso need to decide on a quarterback.
Returner Will Brunson played in all eleven games last season, but is in an open competition for the starting position with redshirt senior Vincent Testaverde and redshirt sophomore Nyc Burns.
“We’re all just trying to make each other better,” said Brunson. “Regardless of the result of camp, coach is going to put the best guy out there, and regardless of who it is out there, we all support each other.”
Testaverde, son of NFL quarterback Vinny Testaverde, transferred to Albany from Miami while Burns comes to Albany after spending seasons with Oklahoma and Northeast Oklahoma A&M.
“We have many aspirations of being a great football team and in order to do so, you have to find the guy,” said Davis. “In my experience of doing this for a long time, usually someone rises to the top.”
Davis and Gattuso will not make the decision on QB1 lightly. They will measure their quarterbacks’ ability to read coverages, communicate play calls, and straight up efficiency in training camp.
Come fall, only one guy can line up under center for the first snap.
“Somebody clicking with the offense and that will get rolling will help us,” said Gattuso. “It’s not my favorite thing in life. I’d like to say we have this stud quarterback, who can take charge. I’ve been in that situation, and that’s the best place to be. I met with all the quarterbacks and said ‘you guys are no different than the guards, the tackles — you have to perform at a higher level for us to do better and achieve our goals.’”
The story right now for the Great Danes is confidence — coming from the back field to the defensive side of the ball.
Come September 15, Great Dane Football will be back at Casey Stadium to take on Morgan State.
“I feel good about our team and who we are,” said Gattuso. “I like what our offense did in the spring and this camp is going to be really huge for the offense and they are going to have to come out really sharp against Pitt.”
The 2018 University at Albany football season officially kicks off September 1 at University of Pittsburgh. Kick off 3:30 pm.