Biff Poggi blames his camp approach for being down nearly half of starters

One of the most difficult thing to balance as a head coach is intentionally developing toughness while also managing to stay healthy.

Before landing the head coaching job at Charlotte, Biff Poggi ran some of the most successful high school programs in the country in Baltimore before joining the staff at Michigan, where he learned the Wolverine way under Jim Harbaugh. 

After a 3-9 debut season at Charlotte and their first season in the AAC after moving away from C-USA, Poggi and the 49ers headed into camp with a daunting week 1 match up with James Madison under new head coach Bob Chesney.

One of the top Group of Five programs last year under Curt Cignetti before he left for the Indiana job, the Dukes roster is loaded with talent heading into this weekend's matchup.

Charlotte on the other hand has fallen victim to the injury bug, and by his own admission, Poggi says his overzealous nature is to blame.

"We have come out of camp, unfortunately, pretty banged up. We have definitely eight, and probably nine starters that are injured. Which is, you know, I'm not great at math, but it's getting close to 50%."

"I feel very bad for those kids, but I know that the young people that get an opportunity to play will play hard, and I take responsibility for that as the head football coach."

"When you open with JMU, they're a program that's 19-4 over the last couple years, you can get a little overzealous."

"You have to balance between that callous that you want the players to have, and then getting them healthy. I get an F- on that for this camp."

Poggi goes on to share that it will take likely the first three games before they're back at full health among those starters.