UAlbany football reports for training camp

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- Nothing screams "football season" quite like the start of training camp, and Tuesday the University at Albany football team reported for its' camp.

The Great Danes are one month away from their season opener with Fordham. They were picked 11th out of 15 teams in the newly renamed Coastal Athletic Association preseason poll released Tuesday.

After a 3-8 campaign last year that saw five, one-possession losses, the Danes are keying in on one specific element of their game ahead of the upcoming season.

"For us, it's just "finish,"" said rising sophomore quarterback Reese Poffenbarger. "Or execute in the times we need to. It's not even a pressure thing. We would be down and came back when the pressure was on. But we just made little mental errors, stupid penalties, or we didn't finish a drive (like) when we were up 11 points against Fordham. We don't finish a drive; they get the ball back; they score. We don't finish another drive; they get the ball back; they score. Now we're playing 0-0. It just seemed like that happened so much last year, so (it's) just executing at the most important times of the game."

Head coach Greg Gattuso believes he has the roster structure in place needed to execute in those fourth-quarter moments.

"We have an experience level that we didn't have last year," said Gattuso. "We have doubled our seniors and juniors. We've almost doubled our returning starters. I think that age and experience is a big part of finishing close games. We had a chance to be a really good football team last year. We struggled in some situations that I think we're gonna be a lot better in this year. You saw that in 2018 into '19 - a very similar situation. I'm confident. This is a different football team than last year. It's more experienced; it's more together. And I think that we're gonna have a great year."

The Aug. 26 tilt with Fordham will mark UAlbany's first season opener played at home since 2014 when the Danes hosted Holy Cross.