GREELEY — All the two-a-day practices are done. The traditional watermelon has been served to the players, marking the official end of fall camp Saturday at Nottingham Field.
It’s officially game week, with NCAA Division II Adams State coming into town at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
The question is whether the Bears are ready. They believe they are. More than ever.
With 18 seniors returning and more depth than they’ve ever had, UNC believes it is ready to make its mark in the Big Sky Conference and erase four years of frustration — just three conference victories.
“Since I have been here, this is by far the most far along we’ve been going into our first game,” senior safety Max Hewitt said. “We said at our first fall camp that it felt like it was just a carryover from spring ball. We just picked up where we left off because we do have so many veterans on the team returning on both sides of the ball, and we have got a lot of depth.”
Still, the Bears had a lot of question marks entering fall camp, especially on offense, where the team was installing a new system under first-year coordinator Greg Peterson. It also sought a starting quarterback to replace the departed Bryan Waggener.
That decision didn’t come until a week ago when Dylan Orms was handed the starting job.
“I think because I am a junior now, and we have most of the same guys returning, that I’ve built chemistry with the team,” Orms said.
Peterson believes the offense has made “tremendous progress” since the start of spring.
Hewitt, a preseason all-Big Sky selection, has no worries the offense will be ready.
“They are leaps and bounds ahead of where I thought they’d be right now,” Hewitt said. “This is by far the best I have felt about our team going into the season.”
A lot of that optimism has to do with a defense that has seven players with starting experience back and two Big Sky second-team selections, cornerback Korey Askew and linebacker John Eddy. The biggest question coming into spring was the defensive line, but the Bears added depth (16 linemen) and size and it now appears to be a strength.
