In his column for Sporting News, Jason Fox talks about how the Canes have improved, how the team has bonded off the field and how he’s taking a leadership role.

‘We’re several wins better than we were last year’
By Jason Fox For SN Today

I was thinking about this the other day, thinking about what it takes to be a good team. And I don’t know what we don’t have. You can’t say we don’t have the athletes. We get top recruits every year. We have the athletes, we have speed—we have everything you need.

Break it down by position, and we have probably four or five legitimate running backs, we have an extremely talented quarterback and we’re very deep at wide receiver. We have a very talented offensive line—and that’s just on the offensive side of the ball.

If you break it down by position, coaches, whatever you want, we have all the pieces of the puzzle. We’ve just got to put them together. I look at this team after looking at last year’s team, and I think we’re several wins better than we were last year, so that’s exciting.


A huge advantage I think is our two new coordinators on both sides of the ball. Coach (Mark) Whipple is a really good offensive coordinator and a very creative play caller, and I’m excited as ever to have him call the plays for us. And playing against our defense, you can already tell that coach (John) Lovett knows what he’s talking about, too.

This team has become closer every year I’ve been here, and this year, guys are not only hanging out together at the athletic center, they’re coming over to my house or going out to eat together, things like that.

I live with three other players— Colin McCarthy, Tyler Horn and Lee Chambers—and we’ve got a house that’s pretty good sized and can have a bunch of people over. We’ve got a pool in our back yard, and guys are over here all the time swimming or playing video games or pool or pingpong.

In the spring, we always have a team fish fry at our house, and this year, the seniors got to talking and decided to get together as a group every two weeks. We took it upon ourselves not to be the disciplinarians, but we kind of took control and said, “You know what coaches, y’all don’t have to be babysitters because we’re going to make sure people are going to class, studying their playbooks, watching film—all the things on and off the field to be successful.

We’ve already seen a lot of positive results, and I think we’ll see a lot more once the season starts. We have a great senior class. A lot of the guys, such as Randy Phillips and Chavez Grant, we’re all the same type of leaders. We’re going to stay on those young guys and make sure they do the right things.
— As told to Jim Gilstrap

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