MSU HC Pat Fitzgerald First Day, Championship Grind Ahead

Fri, Aug 7, 2026

Video Transcript

Good to go.

Everybody good?

OK.

Uh, first of all, thank you so much for being here this morning, uh, for practice and then, you know, covering our team as we embark on the 26, 27 season.

Uh, it's great to be back on the field with the guys.

Uh, Joel We and his staff did an absolutely terrific job getting our guys ready to go for today.

Uh, you know, that's kind of what the summer is all about.

It's not only about preparing the guys, you know, for, for the whole season, but, you know, most importantly from a health and safety standpoint of getting them the right amount of volume, high intensity, and things over the summer.

And Joel and his staff did a terrific job, but as always in summer work, the credit goes to the players and, uh, their commitment to improvement, their commitment to getting in.

In great shape, uh, was very evident, uh, today as things started off.

With that being said though, we were very rusty, uh, long, long way to go.

Uh, that's kind of what I talked to the guys about as we went through, you know, team reps.

It looked like practice number one at training camp, uh, you know, just where do I go, what do I do, even though we went over it for the last 10 amount of hours and last night logistically just, it looked like our first time being out there collectively at a practice and.

Um, but the guys that I thought really attacked it and embraced it.

So now it's gonna be all about how we kind of lean into the grind, uh, raise our expectations individually, and then hold each other to a standard that we want to be at a championship level every rep of every day of everything we do.

So, um, you know, you work your tail off to prepare, but nothing quite prepares you for football than football.