Lamarcus Joyner walked into the press room after the Seminoles' final scrimmage of the summer looking comfortable, at ease, nothing like a player who just participated in a nearly three hour scrimmage in the mid-day Tallahassee heat.
“It went pretty good, pretty relaxing out there,” said Joyner. “Pretty relaxing, man. Everyone was [up to] speed, everyone was fundamentally technique sound. It was great, at ease, everybody was doing their job.”
Joyner is excited about the season, but not feeling anxious at all. He's confident in the Seminoles program and the trickle-down effect the senior leaders have had on the underclassmen so far.
“I’d say that’s why I’m really feeling confident right now and on cloud nine," said Joyner. "We’ve got a lot of talent around here but now you’ve got the older guys and then you have the young guys following their roles and doing the little things that you wouldn’t expect, but that will win you games or get you into the ballgame that much faster.”
Joyner sees improvement each week, but not on the large scale that developing teams typically find it. Joyner sees a talented team that can finally put it together. He's finding improvement on a small, but equally important scale.
“It’s the little things," said Joyner. "Coach Fisher was pretty impressed with the first scrimmage but you know, there were a lot of MA’s, lot of guys not technique sound, just playing on talent and we tried to clean that up this past week and it showed in the scrimmage today.”
For the first time since he arrived at Florida State Joyner feels confident not just in the starters, but in the underclassmen, the back-ups, the depth. Asked if he felt confident about having freshmen like Ronald Darby and Eddie Goldman getting significant playing time, Joyner didn't bristle.
“Yes, and that’s kind of funny I do," said Joyner. "Because most time, you pull the first team out and you’re wondering what’s going to go wrong. You have freshmen out there looking like veteran players out there not missing a heartbeat not missing a step, this is a great feeling we’ve got a lot of depth. Just young guys following the lead.”
Now its time for Joyner and his teammates to turn their attention to the regular season. After the scrimmage Joyner and QB EJ Manuel both said their was a tangible feeling in the huddle that camp was over and it was finally time to start the regular season.
For Joyner, admittedly, September 1st can't come soon enough.
“[I’m] very, very [excited]," said Joyner. "I’ve been patient this whole camp, we’ve all as a team been very patient and now that it’s right around the corner you can tell that it’s football time now."
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