Chemistry – It’s the thing Towson head football coach Rob Ambrose said his team was missing last season. It’s the thing he believes will set his team apart from other teams in the conference.
Last year was a wakeup call for the Tigers, Ambrose and team leaders admit it.
RELATED: Towson looking to rebound from last season
Heading into the third game of the season with a 1-1 record, the Tigers will be looking to build on the team’s chemistry and momentum coming out of what were the best two games of quarterback Conner Frazier’s college career.
Frazier threw for 221 yards in a 28-20 loss to East Carolina that was determined in the final seconds of the game. He passed for 269 yards in last week’s win over St. Francis.
“We’re getting better. We’re growing up. We’re mature. We have great team chemistry,” Ambrose said in a recent interview on The Nest. “That’s the one thing we were missing a year ago.”
Ambrose said his team came off a 2013 season that took them to the national championship with a sense of entitlement that held them back in 2014.
“I had a team that felt like they were born on third base, but thought they hit a triple. They didn’t realize what it took to get to that kind of level,” Ambrose told Charley Crowson on The Nest.
He says his team has made great strides in leadership. Frazier agrees.
“Last year, we didn’t have a lot of team chemistry, and we weren’t really working hard,” Frazier said.
This past offseason was different. Ambrose and his staff spent a whole lot of time on details and fundamentals.
They kept the players on their toes, prepping them for the unexpected.
Towson has a 5-3 record with Holy Cross. The last time the two teams played was in 2013, and the Tigers took the win in that game, 49-7.
Holy Cross comes to Towson off a bye week with a 1-0 record. The Crusaders took a 27-19 win over Monmouth in the first week of the season in a game where they forced four turnovers but were out-gained by several hundred yards on the ground and in the air on the offensive side of the ball.
Game time is 6 p.m. It’s Military Appreciation Night at Johnny Unitas Stadium, and anyone showing a military ID will receive four complimentary tickets to the game.
NOTE: Quotes/comments used in this article were pulled from a taping of The Nest with Justin Tucker. The show airs each Sunday at 11:30 a.m. It is available on an abc2news.com stream each Monday at 10:10 a.m. It is also archived each week here: http://abc2news.com/thenest.
---
** This blog, Unsportsmanlike Conduct , presents the random sports thoughts of ABC2 Director of New Media and long-time sports reporter Brian Troutman.
Download the ABC2 News app for the iPhone , Kindle and Android .
