PERU, NE- With the arrival of August, the Bobcats, and first year Peru State head coach Phil Ockinga, are roughly three weeks away from their first game against Missouri Valley on August 27th.

Ockinga, senior defensive back Carlos Thomas, and senior offensive lineman Mario Locke participated in the Heart of American Athletic Conference Media Days on Wednesday. 

Ockinga answered questions about the outlook of the team as of August.

"You're going to have a new system on both sides of the ball," Ockinga said. "That's going to be a little bit of an adjustment. To be honest, the staff is pretty new. Some of these guys were hired in the last couple of weeks."

Ockinga spoke about the importance of playing spring football for the players—even with only two coaches.

"When we had spring ball, we had 85 guys and two coaches," Ockinga said. "Coach Varley is unbelievable... the kids deserved an opportunity to get to play ball and I wanted to make that possible for them. Now that we have a staff, it's like 'wow, I guess we don't have to do everything.' I don't have to take the trash out, I don't have to film the practice and make the call for the games."

When asked about any changes schematically for offense and defense, Ockinga did not divulge much.

"I would rather have them (opponents) sweat it out and not have any idea," Ockinga said. "That's the one advantage of being the new guy. It will be an aggressive defense and we'll see where we are at offensively."

Peru State opens up the 2022 season on the road against Missouri Valley College on Saturday, August 27th with kick-off at 6:00 p.m.

Otoe County Country will have live coverage of this game beginning at 5:45 p.m.