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Thursday, January 29, 2009
An update from Jonathan Dwyer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I spoke with Jonathan Dwyer Wednesday afternoon, after he had gone to the state Capitol to receive a resolution from the House and Senate commending him for winning the ACC player of the year award.
He offered some tidbits about what’s going on with the team in offseason conditioning.
1) The team is motivated to prove it isn’t a one-year fluke.
“We feed off that. We’ve got a lot of guys coming back, so we’ve got that to our advantage.”
2) Dwyer is in a workout group with, among others, safety Morgan Burnett, quarterback Josh Nesbitt, linebacker Brad Jefferson, B-back Anthony Allen and safety Dominique Reese.
“We try to motivate each other to work out. Sometimes you get tired after awhile working out. That’s what it’s all about - you try to get better, you try to push each other to the best of our abilities.”
3) While the first offseason strength and conditioning program under Paul Johnson was a shock to a lot of players, it’s gotten tougher this year.
“I think they’ve picked it up a notch. It’s more up pace. … We know we all have the same goal of getting better, of trying to be a national-caliber team and winning the ACC next year. Knowing that we have to work hard and do all that to get to that level, then that’s what we’re willing to do.”
4) Dwyer wants to improve his initial quickness.
“I know I have decent breakaway speed and whatnot, (but) I know that my first couple steps can be better. That’s what I’m working on now, to try to get quicker and be able to add more agility to my game.”
5) Dwyer met with Johnson and position coach Brian Bohannon to review some film from the season. Consistency of effort and blocking are two ways the coaches and Dwyer want him to get better, something we wrote about before the Chick-fil-A Bowl.
The goals are “to improve and try to be able to go every play. Hopefully this year, I’ll have Anthony Allen to help me out and other guys, so hopefully the backs will be a whole lot fresher, so everybody won’t be as beat up as much. … (The other goal is) working on blocking techniques and to be more consistent.”
