SUFFOLK, VA (WTKR)- Robbie Duncan has always been excited to get up and kick off football practice. This year, however, it's a little bit different.
"The accountability is on your head for how everything operates and how everything goes," he said. "I enjoy that and I really take pride in bringing all that together."
Nansemond-Suffolk gave Duncan an opportunity he couldn't refuse. After serving as the offensive line coach at Western Branch, Duncan is getting the chance to lead his own program for the first time with the Saints.
"It wasn't something I was necessarily looking for," he recalled. "The opportunity sprang up and when it really kind of started to develop it was too much to pass up."
"I enjoyed talking to him outside of football," added junior quarterback Madden Gilliatt. "That's what you need in a coach, not just on the field, but off the field. You need to be a great role model and that's what he is."
The word floating around the Saints' preseason camp is energy. That's the backbone of the team's approach, from sun-up to the final whistle of practice and every yard in between.
"Six in the morning, every morning, we've got coaches screaming in the locker room," smiled senior kicker Henry Ross. "It's so much energy in the morning. Half the players are half-asleep, but the coaches are ready to go and then that brings us up with them."
"Gotta be the spark plug," Duncan said. "If I'm not doing it, who is? The idea is we want to keep being energetic and playing uptempo and fast and having the other team trying to match that."
"All day we've got energy," Gilliatt noted. "We're going to keep bringing it throughout the whole season and I think a lot of people will be surprised."
To understand Duncan's methods, one must look back at his playing time in college. An offensive lineman at Old Dominion, he blocked for Taylor Heinicke and learned from Bobby Wilder. The NSA head coach is quick to give a nod to his former college coach when it comes to developing his style.
"How successful we were from the get-go wasn't an accident," he said. "It was how we practiced, it was how we prepared and I wanted to make sure that we carried that over from when I played and what I experienced into my coaching career."
Now he hopes that can carry over to his players on the field. There are important boxes he hopes his team can consistently check in order to check off victories.
"They're going to see a lot of head-hunters, see a lot of team chemistry, like we've been playing together since little league," said senior linebacker and defensive lineman Shane Rogers-Johnson.
"Playing fast, playing with energy, playing together, playing as error-free as possible, I think the wins will come," Duncan noted. "My guess is that as long as we're playing within that, we'll have a pretty successful year."
Nansemond-Suffolk finished 4-5 last year under Mike Biehl, who departed to become the head coach at Grassfield. The Saints kick off their season August 22 when they host North Cross.
