*Rookie sixth-round draft choice Korey Hall is going through his first NFL training camp, and Packers.com will chronicle his thoughts and experiences throughout the next several weeks in this training camp diary.
Hall was a linebacker at Boise State but is being converted to fullback by the Packers. He's also being looked at as a potential regular on all the special teams units, where he excelled as a college player.
In this fourth installment, Hall reflects on the preseason opener at Pittsburgh and his role at fullback and on all the special teams. He also talks about the three weeks in the St. Norbert College dorms coming to an end, and how he's looking forward to a visit from his parents for Saturday night's game against Seattle.*
The first game overall went pretty well. I didn't really have any missed assignments or things like that. Obviously there's still some things I need to sharpen up on. You still need to study your assignments so you don't miss any, but now it's more a matter of just getting into your stance, the proper footwork and aiming points, stuff like that. That's what I'm focusing on now. After watching the film, there's good things and bad things you can take from it. Hopefully I can correct some of those bad things this week.
There were a couple of run plays I know my pad level was a little high and I need to bring my pad leverage down a little bit. Other than that, on special teams I'm still a little rusty going down and trying to tackle people. I haven't done that in a while, so I'm trying to sharpen up on that. Right now I'm on kickoff, kick return, punt and punt return. The first half when we had the 1's in on all of them, I was starting to get a little worn out. My conditioning will definitely be a factor playing on all the special teams.
It's been moving pretty fast for me lately, just because you get in here and you want to make the team, and now since Brandon Miree has been hurt, I've been playing the starting role a little bit. Sometimes that can be an overwhelming feeling, going out and knowing how much responsibility you have on you. But I feel overall it's going pretty well, and it's a matter of not letting up at all.
Saturday night, playing at Lambeau, I'm sure it's going to be exciting and all the fans will be fired up. It's going to mean a lot to me personally because my parents will be in town watching. I haven't seen my folks since about a week before training camp. But they made most of my games in college to come watch me play, and I appreciate how often they can get to the games. It's definitely a long haul coming out here from Idaho. They're flying in from Boise on Friday afternoon. Hopefully in the evening I can meet up with them and hang out a little bit. Then maybe after the game, too.
Friday afternoon we move out of the dorms. You can only live in a dorm so long. I thought I quit dorm life after my freshman year in college. The thing about training camp is it's like Ground Hog Day. It's like you're stuck in it. But I think right now I'll move into a hotel until I figure out what's going to happen, and maybe think about getting a place out here if things work out for me.
