Rockets hungry for 2014 season

The wait for the University of Toledo football team is finally over.

Winter has come and gone, spring came and went and the summer is nearing an end. The Rockets couldn’t be happier to finally stop hitting each other and start hitting players who they don’t sit next to during classes.

“Camp was long, summer has been long and spring was long, “said junior defensive end Trent Voss. “To finally see someone who is not in blue and gold will be exciting.”

For the Rockets, 2014 isn’t just a chance to build new memories and fight for a Mid-American Conference Championship; it is also a chance to finally forget about the disappointments of last season, something head coach Matt Campbell is confident will be easy for his squad.

“We are dealing with 18 to 22-year-old kids,” he said. “I don’t mean to say this jokingly, but these guys sometimes don’t even know what is going on in the next 24 hours. They are worried about the here and now and I think that is why, for us, so much of it is about the process.”

Campbell’s players seem impatient to reach the next step of that process, the one where they actually get to play live football.

“It has been a long time since I have really put on a jersey to be the guy,” said junior quarterback Phillip Ely. “That is the feeling that I love. You love putting on those pads and kind of being the guy.

“We are all itching to get out there.”

All three of Toledo’s potential starting quarterbacks are eager to reach the field this year, but two of them have been waiting an exceptionally long time.

While sophomore Logan Woodside was able to step out onto the turf of the Glass Bowl last season due to an injury to former quarterback Terrance Owens, Ely and redshirt freshman Michael Julian saw nothing but position meetings and bench time while they sat and waited for their turn.

The team redshirted Julian in 2013 while Ely had to sit out after transferring from Alabama.

“I am very eager to get on the field,” Julian said. “Coming from high school where I started three years and then coming here and having to sit out a year, I am really ready to get back out on the field.”

Senior offensive lineman Greg Mancz, who is moving to the center position to replace departed Rocket Zac Kerin, is also excited for the new season, and he will be looking to get comfortable at his new spot as quick as possible.

“It has been a challenge just because it is a new position,” Mancz said of the learning process. “Every time you move it is a different mindset maybe, but it has been a blessing because I have been with four other redshirt seniors who I have been with since day one, so it has been nice having those guys around me helping me through the process.”

Voss, like Mancz, is also learning a new position this year, having switched from linebacker to defensive end.

“It’s been pretty smooth,” he said of the transition. “I just have to focus on the new things that I need to be working on like being down in the box, things like that. Wherever they want to put me is where I am going to try to succeed.”

The new position Voss finds himself learning brings him much closer to Toledo’s veteran offensive line, something he says he does not mind very much.

“I like it a little bit,” he said, smiling. “I’ve been around these guys a little bit and now I can finally get under their facemasks. It’s a joy.”

Voss and the rest of UT’s defense will need to be a much-improved unit from the one that Toledo featured last season if the Rockets hope to reach the MAC Championship in 2014.

“When you play nine of eleven starters last year that are all either freshmen or sophomores, and you play a bunch of young guys, you watch that group come together and work each and every day to get better,” Campbell said. “I think that we are kind of almost spoiled in that we get to watch the progress that group has made from their last football game last year to where they are ready to be starting this season.

“I am really excited to watch that group. I think they are on a mission, and that mission is to continue to improve and to continue to get better each and every day.”

Individual and team missions aside, the wait to see how improved the Rockets are is at an end.

For fan and player alike, one thing is absolutely clear: it has been a very long offseason.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for the season,” Voss said. “It is just going to be a good feeling to get back on the field and get back into game week.”