ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Brian Bennett

It's a rite of summer for college football players to say their preseason workouts are harder than ever before. Devin McCourty is convinced that's actually true at Rutgers.

	WILLIAM PERLMAN, THE STAR-LEDGER via US PRESSWIRE
	Devin McCourty's stats in the PapaJohns.com Bowl: seven tackles, one interception, 1 pass defensed.

The senior cornerback says the team's veterans remember last year's 1-5 start. And though they still aren't sure why they began the season so slowly, they're determined to avoid that kind of stumble out of the gates this year.

"We have a drive that's tremendous right now to get back and play well in first game of the season," McCourty said.

The Scarlet Knights ended the year on a seven-game winning streak, including a victory over NC State in the Papajohns.com Bowl. But that's a distant memory.

"That seems so far away right now that it's really hard to look back," McCourty said. "We'll look at some of the things we did well last year and try to carry it forward, but actual momentum is hard to try and keep going for such a long period of time."

There's a chance that Rutgers could enter the season as the Big East favorite for the first time. A few experts have picked the Scarlet Knights to win the league this summer, based on their returning nucleus and favorable schedule. Such chatter doesn't faze McCourty.

"I'm not even really sure who's picking us right now," he said. "Our goal is the same every year, and that's that we want to try to be the best team in our conference. I'm not really worried about who's picking us or who's not. I'm just thinking about what we have to do for ourselves."

One of the keys for this year's team is developing the passing game following the departures of quarterback Mike Teel and receivers Kenny Britt and Tiquan Underwood. The spring didn't give much reason for optimism in that area beyond the play of senior Tim Brown.

But McCourty said he's been encouraged by the play of the young receivers during the 7-on-7 workouts during the summer. He said the offense and defense have mostly battled to a draw even though the defense has experience on its side.

"As a corps, they're definitely getting a lot better," he said. "They're jelling more with the quarterbacks, because in the spring that was really the first time the group had gotten together. Now that they have a lot of time together, they're definitely getting better."

The defensive backfield has gotten a boost with the return of junior safety Joe Lefeged, who sat out the spring with a shoulder injury. McCourty reports that Lefeged is healthy and able to go through all the drills right now.

Greg Schiano gave the players the Fourth of July weekend off to go home and spend time with their families. The Scarlet Knights returned this week to resume more intense offseason workouts.
 
"We talk about it as a team," McCourty said. "If we want to improve over last year, then the last month before training camp we have to really go hard and be better than we were last summer."