Image courtesy of UMass Athletics/Thom Kendall

Santa Claus wasn’t in Amherst on a scorching Friday morning, but Don Brown was.

Same thing, right?

The Minutemen officially opened their 2023 training camp with a 10 A.M. practice. A few weeks ago when Coach Brown joined us on the New England Football Show, his excitement for what’s being built radiated through his computer screen. Now, the guys finally get to take another step with some physicality and “real” football. The pads can’t come on just yet, but just being back on the field was more than enough.

Here’s everything Brown and George Johnson III had to say after Day 1:

BROWN ON FIRST IMPRESSIONS

“You’re always excited when it’s Day 1, practice one and it’s time to go. Today was no exception. Guys came out, competed, played hard and played as fast as they could possibly play. You’ve got to remember, there’s a couple things you’ve got to keep in mind. You’re in no pads, so you’ve got to put your brain on too to make sure you take care of one another. The only protective device you have on is the helmet, so you’ve got to use your head on that one. Our guys have done a good job of learning how to practice and I wasn’t nervous about it at all…we were able to practice in the heat and the weather report for the next week is it looks like it’s going to cool off pretty good, so we’ll take as many of these as we can get to get our work in.”

BROWN ON THE CONDITIONING LEVEL OF THE TEAM

“Good. We go…our guys are with the strength people, with us and the strength people in the month of June and then they’re with the strength coaches for the month of July. So, there’s a solid degree of conditioning, so that was not an issue today. We did have some cramping, but that’s to be expected. That comes from I didn’t drink enough water at breakfast for crying’ out loud. That kind of thing comes up, but I felt like the conditioning piece was a non-issue.”

BROWN ON HOW LONG UNTIL HE’LL KNOW STARTERS ON BOTH SIDES

“When we go to game week, we’ve got to be ready to go. That’s the important piece. Game week begins, it’s August 24th or 26th, something along those lines of what the date is. I’ve never coached in July before, so this is a new experience. Bottom line is, prior to us getting to game plan week, we’ve got to make some decisions. But, I’m a big believer in let them all compete as much as possible because some guys all of the sudden, they just wake up one morning and they know the concepts, they understand what’s going on and the light goes off. You don’t want to shut the light off on that kind of guy, but at the same time, you’ve only got so many days to gameplan and prepare for a game. We’ll certainly be ahead of that.”

BROWN ON WHAT IT WAS LIKE COACHING IN JULY FOR THE 1ST TIME

“Weird. It’s weird. It really is. Coaching in July is a different sphere, but the interesting thing is we’ll play our first game the 24th, 25th, 26th whichever it is, and then we’ll play the last week of the regular season too because we’ll have two byes. So, the good thing is we’ll have a bye before Army – which, they’re going to be something different schematically – so that’ll give us an opportunity to get ready and compete and get ready to play them. Then, we get another one two weeks later. Those are never bad things because late in the year, you always have a few guys in question. It’s nice to give them an opportunity to get back on their feet.”

BROWN ON THE ENERGY AROUND THE PROGRAM AND DIFFERENCE FROM LAST YEAR

“This group is a good group. We’ve done a good job I think in he recruiting process and we’ve taken advantage of all pieces. Whether it’s the high school recruiting group, or whether it be junior college group or whether it be the transfer portal. The mistake I made a year ago, and I take full…when we were picking from the portal, we didn’t care if they were old, young, whatever, we just took the best players we could find and get them on our roster. I think that lack of maturity ended up hurting us. Whereas, this particular group, we paid attention to how many guys had played two and three years so they could come in here and lend some leadership ability to our guys as well. I think we went from 5-6 seniors on the team last year – which would make us one of the youngest teams in the FBS – to somewhere around 16-20 now. We’ve certainly taken that into account and have paid attention to the leadership factor that can be conveyed to our football team.”

BROWN ON THE QB’S

“I think they all are (ready to go.) I just think they’re all prepared, they’re all working hard and you know what? They have a connection with one another too. It’s not like life and death. They’re taking care of each other like they’re bothers. That’ll give you a chance. You know the deal. It happened last year. Who you think will be the No. 1, all of a sudden, a couple things happen, things change. We want to make sure we bring them all along, but at some point in time we’re going to have to make a good decision…it’ll be prior to game week. Probably somewhere over the next couple weeks. That’s our plan.”

BROWN ON IF ANY GUYS STOOD OUT ON DAY 1

“DJ Jerkins I thought defensively he did some really good things. Nahji – who missed a good amount of the spring – he flashed today and did some good things. We’ve kind of tweaked his position to see him be a shining bright star in that area, that was a good thing. I think Billy too…the good thing about Billy…I thought the guy we got last year looked like a guy that had an ACL tear, had it repaired and was in his first year. He doesn’t look that way anymore. He looks like a guy that’s fully recovered from an ACL tear and ready to play ball, so that’s a good thing. I think Hugo’s really climbed the ladder doing some good things. Shawn Harris from Stony Brook, I felt him today. Obviously, I’m calling the defenses, but I did feel him today. That was a good thing. I think we’ve got a number of guys…I do think our wide receiver group is young, has energy and has talent. We’ll just keep getting better at QB and our tight end group is doing a good job as well. Gino’s doing a good job. Jackson’s doing a good job. Matt’s doing a good job. All those guys, I feel them. I think we’re going in the right direction. It’s only Day 1 though. You’ve got to try and control your emotions and make sure you’re working hard on the techniques and fundamentals necessary to be a good football player.”

BROWN ON WHEN PADS COME ON

“Saturday will be another no pad day. Sunday is the off day to get us in a balance where we’re taking Sundays off. So, Monday. we’ll be in pads on Monday.”

BROWN ON HOW THE STAFF IS PREPARING FOR A LOT OF TRAVEL THE FIRST FEW WEEKS

“You’ve got to make sure you get them the proper rest and give them enough balance in the heat and dealing with it. But, the guys have got to do a good job of taking care of themselves. You’ve got to get in the cold water tubs and take care of their bodies and do all of those necessary items that keep you bright and keep you sharp. That’s what we’re looking for.”

JOHNSON III ON THE FIRST DAY

“Just a blessing to get out there early. Me and Gino was picking me up from the airport and on the way back, we saw a dude with no arms and no legs. We just looked at each other and said ‘we can’t complain about nothin’ in life, because somebody always got it worse than you.’ We’re out here doing something we dreamed about, so why wake up and try to rush this dream. It’s a blessing to be out here every day.”

JOHNSON III ON WHAT PRACTICE WAS LIKE

“I felt a lot of energy. Not going to lie, we had a lot of rust today, first day as usual, so we had to knock off the rust. But, we had the intensity and enthusiasm from the jump. We can’t question that, we can probably just question our execution of a few things. The excitement, the enthusiasm was all there, now we just got to capitalize and execute each play that’s called from first down, to second down to third down.”

JOHNSON III ON HOW DIFFERENT DAY 1 IN 2023 FELT COMPARED TO DAY 1 IN 2022

“Energy wise, I would say the same. I just said we had some execution problems, but we had less execution problems. I would say it’s more maturity. We’re more comfortable with the offense because last year was a new offense. Just staying comfortable, more comfortable than last year, but we’ve just got to keep capitalizing and making less mistakes.”

JOHNSON III ON WHAT HE SPECIFICALLY WANTS TO IMPROVE ON

“For me personally, just taking better care of my body. Not just practicing and then trying to leave right after to go get food or just sit down. I’ve got to just learn how the pro’s take care of their body. That’s my dream, so if I want to make it come true, I’ve got to learn how to take care of my body. This spring I had a lot of hamstring problems, so I had growing pains with that. I had to grow up a little bit. Being in here more taking care of my body, watching more film. Not just thinking if you put in extra work after practice you’re going to be good on Saturdays. It’s more than that. It’s taking care of your body and watching more film…Coach McCaffery and then our new head athletic trainer McKayla, she had a little plan for me. She made me come in and do yoga with her every day and then once I got better at that she let me go on my own. She told me you’ve got to do this on your own now. you’re a grown man, If you care about your body enough you’ll come in every morning and do it yourself. I did that and then she did the other little things as far as treatment. She said you’ve got to grow up for yourself if you want success for yourself.”

JOHNSON III ON IF THE TEAM IS KEEPING LAST YEAR FRESH IN THEIR MIND OR DISMISSING IT

“50/50. You always want to remember where you came from. You want to enjoy the process because say our dreams do come true as a team this year, we’re going to remember last yea, that 1-11. You don’t want to entirely forget about it, you just want to keep it in the back of your mind and use it as motivation each and every Saturday you step on that field.”

JOHNSON III ON IF THERE’S ANY GAME HE’S LOOKING FORWARD TO MOST

“New Mexico State. Week 1. That’s our first stepping stone. We win that game, it just goes up from there. Week 1. Not Week 2, Week 3, not UConn, Week 1. Then, after that, Week 2. Just week-by-week be excited and gear up for it.”

JOHNSON III ON DIFFICULTY OF NOT LOOKING AHEAD

“We’re kids. We get happy. It’s ‘Week 4 we’re excited to play them. Week 6, we’re excited to play them. We’re excited to play UConn.’ But, the most important game is Week 1. You can’t get to Week 3 without winning Week 1.”

JOHNSON III ON IF ANY TEAMMATES STOOD OUT

“Probably Mark Pope. Mark Pope had a big play today. Anthony Simpson had a big play today. Shawn White caught some passes today. I would say just all the new guys. I like how they came in today, got right on the train and said ‘let’s go.’ They didn’t hold us up, none of that. They just said we’re going to learn from ya’ll and we’re going to come out and execute. I would say every single last guy…I was very proud for them.”

JOHNSON III ON IF BEING A VET NOW FEELS DIFFERENT

“Yes. I’m always this happy, smiling dude. I had a problem last year at Michigan. I was smiling one day and the next day you may see me straight. So, my coaches told me you’ve got to be the same person each and every day, even if you’re having a bad day. Part of being a leader is being that same person and taking this crew and they follow behind you. Everything starts with you. So, as a captain and a leader, I have to show up every day. It don’t matter if my hamstring hurt, it don’t matter if I dropped two passes, I’ve got to be that same person I was the day before and be consistent. Bring it every single day without a day off.”