Adam Smith's take
www.thetimesnews.com/sports/elon-sports/reality-strikes-for-elon-phoenix-takes-in-first-football-function-in-caa-1.349907Reality strikes for Elon: Phoenix takes in first football function in CAA
By Adam Smith / Times-News
Published: Thursday, July 24, 2014 at 00:54 AM.
BALTIMORE — If its just-completed move to the Colonial Athletic Association had yet to seem real for the Elon football team, Wednesday made sure to reverse that feeling.
The Phoenix, with coach Rich Skrosky and a pair of player representatives attending, participated in the league’s media day at M&T Bank Stadium for the first time, the preseason kickoff event that in some ways served as a meet-and-greet while Elon gets acclimated to its new CAA residence and different surroundings.
“The whole new conference and knowing that you’re not having any familiar games, it’s definitely a little surreal and this pretty much confirms that,” senior offensive lineman Austin Sowell said. “It’s definitely happening. You’re not playing in the old stadiums you’re used to. You’re not playing the old guys you’re used to. This is brand new.”
All of it.
For Elon, the new kid on the CAA block, there are 11 new sets of coaches and players to compete against, 11 new teams, mascots and locations to learn — a rebooted football experience really.
Reinforcing the sense of a fresh beginning and perhaps furthering its recent departure from the Southern Conference, where Elon spent the previous 11 years, was the splendid NFL setting that hosted Wednesday’s gathering.
Sowell and junior safety Miles Williams fielded interviewers’ questions as highlights from past CAA seasons looped on the banks of flat screen televisions in the posh club level suites at the home of the Baltimore Ravens.
The Elon players were stationed at a table about 30 feet from glass doors leading to Sections 230 and 231 of the stadium, where a sea of purple, 71,000 seats and the Ravens’ field turf waited outside with an alluring visual.
Photo ops beckoned again and again.
“It’s different, but it’s exciting to be a part of, especially being in Baltimore,” Williams said. “I’m a huge Ravens fan.”
Williams, who grew up near Spartanburg, S.C., said he could feel the pull of childhood memories. His ties run deep to the Baltimore area and the Ravens. He has grandparents living in Maryland and both of his parents went to college in the state.
His grandmother and the mother of former Ravens All-Pro Jonathan Ogden, the Hall of Fame offensive tackle, became close friends. Williams’ family members often visited Baltimore’s minicamp and training camp practice sessions.
“We’ve actually got pictures with Ray Lewis’ mom where we’re sitting on her lap,” he said.
Meanwhile, with Elon coming off last year’s 2-10 record and predictably forecast to finish in the cellar of the 12-team league, Skrosky, the Phoenix’s first-year coach, acknowledged the challenge facing the Phoenix this season and in the future.
Increasingly deep and talented, the CAA had two of the four teams — New Hampshire and Towson — in the Football Championship Subdivision semifinals last season. Towson advanced to the FCS championship game and lost to North Dakota State.
“Going into the conference, I think there’s an unknown for them and us,” Skrosky said, before referring to his successful run as an assistant coach at Elon from 2006-10. “Time will tell whether we’re able to get this program back to where it was. But to do it and do it in this conference, I think, would be special.