MONTOGMERY—When your head football coach was an NFL All-Pro kick returner, you know his team's are going to work a little extra on special teams and that is what Alabama State University spent a lot of time on in today's (Sunday) practice.
 
The Hornets started the practice off working on extra points, field goals and kick returns and then spent the final sessions of the practice working on those portions of the game once again.
 
“We know special teams can give you the winning edge,” head coach Reggie Barlow said.  “There is going to be one or two ball games that will be won or lost because of special teams and we want to make sure we have a great attention to detail and we think we have enough depth on the team to make sure we have good personnel on those teams.  We just want to make sure we put a lot of attention into it and we have a new coach working on it and we like the job he is doing with it.”
 
Today's practice was also the final practice before the Hornets get into full gear starting with tomorrow's practice and Barlow likes what he has seen in the first days of the preseason and thinks the team is ready for full gear.
 
“We were able to do a lot of the teaching in these first days of practice,” Barlow said.  “We have a lot of returning players so we don't have to feed it to them because they really understand it.  We were able to install much of the offense that we wanted and now it is a matter of transitioning it into full gear and see how these guys respond with all the pads on.”
 
The coaching staff also used the first days of practice to take a long look at the younger players as they begin to decide who they believe will be able to step in this season.
 
“I think there is a handful of young guys like Jahod Coleman a running back who is running the ball well, and Damian Love on the offensive line has been everything we knew he could be,” Barlow said.  “We are happy with those guys and some others that are stepping up.  Typically, there are always a couple of young guys that we know have the ability, but we want to see them continue to develop and again, we have had some of the young kids step up and do a good job.”
 
The Hornets will be back on the field tomorrow (Monday) at 3 p.m.