Syracuse recently returned to campus after a week-long stay at Fort Drum in Watertown, N.Y., as the football team worked with the 10th Mountain Division in various training and learning exercises.

Coach Doug Marrone came up with the idea to incorporate elements of military training into preseason camp, and his players deemed it a rousing success. I had a chance to catch up with second-year linebacker Dyshawn Davis to learn more.

So now that you are back, how do you feel things went for the team at Fort Drum?

DD: I think it went pretty good. We came closer as a team. I was roommates with someone I had never talked to. It took us out of our element so we could become better as a football team. There were no distractions. It got us better. We got to spend time with Army soldiers, and we connected with them on a different level. They shared stories with us, how they went in combat and how they lost a brother, but they didn’t have time to be sad. They had to continue to complete the mission. That was something that we needed to do as a team, and overall I think it was pretty good. It made us become mentally tougher.

What was the toughest part of the week?

DD: We had a little activity we had to do where they split us up into groups. All the linebackers, we were one group. Our team leader was Dan Vaughn. There were a lot of activities that required us to do a lot of thinking. Each linebacker had a goal to accomplish, and everybody played a part in that activity. Position wise, we had the same activities they had set up for everybody, so we all completed the same activities they assigned us. They told us that the linebackers had the fastest time, so we listened to Dan Vaughn and we all were doing our team roles, and that activity alone brought us closer as a team and that led us to realize that we have to work together to complete a mission. Al the small things we did there can be transferred to the field.

You mentioned rooming with somebody you didn’t know much. Who was it, and what was that experience like?

DD: My roommate was one of the wide receivers on the team, Ben Lewis, a younger guy on the team. He was a good roommate. I got to know where he was from, what position he played in high school, what his high school was like. We did a good job waking each other up and making sure we were on time for meetings, making sure we were both in the playbook. I wasn’t the only one that was roommates with someone I had never talked with before on the team. It was like that for everyone. That whole experience was a great experience. We were there for a week, so during that whole week we became closer and closer as the days went by. Seeing Ben at practice, going against him it was competitive, because he was my roommate and we talked and wanted to push each other and get each other better. It was not just with me, but the whole team. That whole Fort Drum experience was really good, and I think it helped us become closer as a team.

How will all that translate onto the field when the games kick off?

DD: I think it will translate on the field later on, deep in a game, in close games when you need to dig down deep if we’re tired. The soldiers told us they fight for each other. They put their lives on the line. We get to see the next day, but for them it’s like a gamble -- are they going to live or die? They put it all out there. From hearing their stories and just imagining the soldiers fighting for each other, it visualized each other fighting for one another. When we’re tired, we can think about everything the soldiers told us and push each other and how hard it was that whole week at Fort Drum and everything we went through, how tired we were and how we still had to get up in double sessions and get better, still keep fighting to become a better team. That will correlate in a game on the field.

You started all 12 games last year as a true freshman. How did that experience prepare you for this year?

DD: I think it will prepare me well. I was a freshman last year, I got familiar with the game. This offseason, I was able to think about what was my weakness, what was the thing I was good at. This offseason, I wanted to focus on getting stronger and faster and being able to make open field tackles and get off blocks, and that right there is big for me because I’m just a step faster. Last year, I was young. I was a little hesitant, and I really didn’t have confidence all the time. This year, I’m familiar with the game, I’m familiar with playing in front of thousands of people. I know how to think when I’m tired. I know the adversity that I face in a game, when we’re down or I’m tired or hurt. I was happy I got to experience that early, so now I’m a veteran of the game and I know all the aspects of the game, and I know how to handle myself in the future.