While many Auburn students are lounging around in a pool and dragging themselves to summer classes, football players are spending their summer intensely preparing for the upcoming season.
The team trains Monday through Friday, starting at 5 a.m., for roughly two hours. Highly recruited five-star freshman running back Michael Dyer is practicing alongside a bevy of seasoned athletes, but says he doesn't get intimidated.
"This team, we are worried more about getting better and not so much about what he can or can't do," Dyer said.
Dyer believes that at times it's hard being the new kid on the field because he's tossed right in the mix with veteran players.
"You try and come in and fit in and you try to learn quickly, and sometimes it's kind of hard because they know what they're doing, and if you mess up, they might have some words that you might not want to hear from them, but you have to listen to them anyway."
The main focus in the summer training regiment is learning terminology and plays, building team camaraderie and getting players bigger, faster and stronger.
"Right now, we get to learn how it's going to be when the season starts, with the running plays and the workout system and just how everything is run, including how the coaches are and how the football team reacts in certain situations," Dyer said. "Every day that we workout, it prepares you to be on the field."
Senior Zac Etheridge knows first hand how crucial summer training is.
"The summer is very hard and intense, and you're with your teammates, and you're building that relationship with the team," Etheridge said.
Summer training isn't just for the benefit of underclassmen, according to assistant head coach Trooper Taylor.
"It's huge when they're sweating in the heat together," Taylor said. "It's like Christmas for the older guys: everybody has new toys, and they want to see what they can do."
Both Etheridge and Dyer credited Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Kevin Yoxall with bringing the team together and forcing them to function as a unit.
"Coach Yox does a great job with running us and making us pull together as a team," Etheridge said.
Of course, the workouts are not only there to help create a better team, but make better individuals as well.
"I think it definitely gives you an advantage working out with Yox's workouts," Dyer said. "I think if you do his workout the way he teaches you to do it, you'll become a better player."
In the summer, team morale is not only found on the field.
"Auburn is not as packed, and it's just us here, so we do things outside of football just to try and keep the team together and bond more. It builds us a lot," Etheridge said.
In short, summer training is about more than getting the players in top athletic shape for the fall. It's when a group of individually talented athletes become a team.
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