Texas Southern Tigers open second week of practice in full pads

HOUSTON, Texas -- Texas Southern Tigers football kicked off the second full week of Fall camp with a spirited full pads practice session on Monday.

TSU Defensive Coordinator Tom Anthony has liked what he has seen out of the Tigers defense up to this point of camp and is pleased with the overall level of depth the Tigers boast defensively.

"I think we did a good job or recruiting a lot of depth on our football team at multiple positions on the field," said Anthony. "We have three guys that started nine of our eleven games last season in Sean Jones, Archie Rice, and Dondre Dobbins. With that being said pretty much every other spot on our defense is open."

Texas Southern has several key positions open on both sides of the ball and that has clearly become evident with the high level of completion exhibited throughout the Tigers practices.

"We have a lot of new faces having lost so many starters from last season," said Anthony. "The first week of camp was really good as far as position battles and guys competing for a job. Just seeing guys out there competing at a high level has been one of the positives from the first week of camp."

TSU will open the 2017 campaign on the road versus the Florida A&M Rattlers in Tallahassee. Despite not knowing too much about the varying personnel packages they will have to line up against Anthony seems confident in his teams' ability to adapt and adjust.

"We're focusing on the basics right now," said Anthony. "We'll go into that game with a lot of solid favorite calls out of our packages and our kids know that the first game of the season is always going to be about adjustments seeing as how team can change a lot schematically from year to year so we'll have to adjust to anything new that we might see."

Tickets for the 2017 Labor Day Classic which will be held this season at the TSU Tigers home BBVA Compass Stadium are currently on sale at the TSU and PVAMU bookstores as well as Wolf's Department store and the BBVA Box Office. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.axs.com.

TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY TIGERS ATHLETICS MEDIA RELATIONS