Pirate football recently wrapped up summer camp with a road trip to Charlotte, NC where they held a scrimmage that was open to the public. I was able to catch up with senior punter, Worth Gregory and junior wide receiver Quay Johnson. They both had a very successful camp and are both nominated for preseason watch lists.
Johnson was nominated for the Paul Hornung watch list, which is an award for the most versatile player in college football. Former Pirate Justin Hardy was also nominated for this award in 2014. Johnson said it is a blessing to be nominated and he will continue to work hard and see where it goes from there. Quay is only 34 yards away from reaching a 1,000 yards for his college career so far . But, he doesn’t plan on reaching that goal alone. He knows that with the help of the team and getting the ball in his hand he will surely succeed.
As most people that pay attention to AAC sports know the Pirates are going through a big change this year with the hiring of a new head coach. This is the first time the team is experiencing camp under his lead. Johnson uses terms like, “Intense, tough, and hard” to describe camp this year. But, he has hope that because of this everything will come together. Gregory was trying to come up with the word to describe this years camp and he said camp is more structured, there is not a lot of free time this year but he thinks it is a good thing that will pay off and already feels like they have gotten a lot more accomplished.
For Gregory this was his last college football camp ever. For him it went by really fast but he is excited for the season and thinks it is going to be a good one. With this being his last year I asked him what his favorite camp memory has been so far and his reply? “The Halo tournaments” where a group gathers in one of the guys dorm rooms and they just play the game trying to take a break from thinking about football for a little bit. Now, I follow him on twitter and he is a Pokemon GO player, he even tweeted out that one of his camp goals was to catch something other than a Pidgey. So, of course I had to ask him how that was going. “I have not caught anything other than a Pidgey, we have been stuck in dorms so I haven’t really had a lot of chances to walk around, I haven’t even hatched an egg yet.” So, there’s that. Gregory was nominated for the Ray Guy watch list for the third time in a row, which is for college punter of the year. It’s big time for him but at the end of the day he says he has to work like he isn’t even on it because its just a list and if you don’t show out on the field it doesn’t really matter.
I asked both players what their favorite part of camp was and they both kind of laughed. Johnson went with getting to take an hour nap here and there. Gregory sarcastically says eating dining hall food and sleeping in the dorms.
The Pirates kick off the first game on September 3rd against Western Carolina at home.