WESTMINSTER, Md. — There is a new kind of energy around the McDaniel College football team this year.
It's the kind that comes with a first-year head coach.
It's the kind that comes with a coach who has green blood running through his veins.
"As soon as I stepped on the field it was go time," said Skyler Fultz. "It was exactly kind of what I thought it was going to feel like."
For Fultz it feels like home. The 2011 McDaniel grad, in his first fall camp as head coach of the Green Terror, is back on the field where he played with a new mission: win and win big.
"That’s the reason why I took the job," he said. "I was recruited here, came here as a player with the goal of winning the Centennial Conference championship. When you don’t reach a goal it always stays in the back of your mind. Walking through this it’s like that is the ultimate goal."
The 35-year-old inherits a team that went winless last year. But he sees plenty of old and new talent. There are 49 new players on the field in fall camp. There are 102 players on this year's roster. Last year there were only 76 players on the team.
"We have some very good veteran leadership and some really good young guys that are buying into what the leaders are preaching to them," said Fultz.
Senior defensive lineman Chris Wright is one of those leaders.
"Everything is different from the head guy to the players to the mindset. That’s probably been the biggest thing that we have been preaching since spring when Coach Fultz came in here. It’s just been all mindset," he said.
"It’s new to us and it’s excitement that we are coming to change it around and doubt the haters," said sophomore quarterback Angel Granado Jr. "So, we want to prove everybody wrong and prove ourselves right."
They want to turn the page.
"We’re not going to talk about the past," said Fultz. "The past means nothing anymore from last year. It’s what can we do incrementally going forward?"
They have three weeks to keep getting better before game number one. McDaniel’s season gets underway on September 6 when they host Catholic.
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