March 9, 2010
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Opening statement: When you start working in spring practice, you start over with your leadership, you start over with the chemistry of your team, the morale of your team, and those are things that won't be answered until the fall, but they're things that we work on daily. We had a great scrimmage on Saturday. It was very physical. We got a whole lot done. It answered some questions for us. We'll have another one tomorrow. The guys have invited one of their favorite professors to the scrimmage tomorrow so they'll watch the scrimmage and then have dinner with the guys. They'll have an academic presentation before the scrimmage. They'll enjoy watching their guys play in the scrimmage and then they'll eat dinner with them and the staff tomorrow night.
Barrett Matthews is doing really well. He's doubling up at the Y position and the H-back position, in which we're using him in motion, and he motions back to a fullback some. We feel like he's been impressive in the first few days that we've been in practice. Both offensive lines are getting better. They're doing a good job. We're encouraged with the first group, but we think the second group's moving their feet well and we see some progress. We would like to play two-deep because we'll lose a lot of the first-team guys next year and in two years we need to be ready for guys to step in, so we feel like the two-deep in that position is very, very critical. We've still got to separate our quarterback position and that probably won't happen until the second part of spring practice because we need to see who's doing well. The freshmen are just learning what to do. Sherrod (Harris) and Garrett (Gilbert) have been around long enough now they can pretty much manage the scrimmages. The young ones are still learning. The tackling part of the scrimmage also helps you evaluate running backs, so we felt like we're continuing to get a good look at the backs because there's a group of them as well.
Defensively, I'm not talking about older guys on either side of the ball because you all know them. Alex Okafor's had a good camp so far. He's done a good job in the first part of spring, and Dravannti Johnson's showing some life. He's playing linebacker, he's playing the Buck position, so he's playing both, and he's done a good job rushing the passer, so we feel like that he'll have a chance to get in the mix some. We're still looking for punt returners. We've got Curtis Brown, Marquise Goodwin and A.J. Williams, but we haven't really worked on the punting game enough yet to know which one of those guys would step up. You're trying to go back through tonight and tomorrow and make sure that you've got all of your goals that you set for the first part of spring accomplished and reset your goals for the second part of spring. If you haven't gotten something done in the first part, you don't want to walk away from here at the end of spring and not have it accomplished. You're not looking at the Sam Acho's, you're looking at the guys who are learning and trying to get better. That's what spring's about, so it doesn't always look pretty, but you're trying to evaluate personnel. As we said, after a guy gets out of spring practice if he hasn't found himself a spot he'll have to sit behind some freshmen as they look for a spot in the fall.
The spring game is on Easter this year. We'll have it at 4:00 in the afternoon. We hope everybody that has a three or four hour drive, if they can't come in the night before, they'll be able to have their Easter breakfast and go to church services with their family and then drive in and enjoy the game. The game will be about an hour and a half. It will still be televised. After that, they'll still be able to get home at a decent hour. And that's about the players. We have the spring break set so the guys can go home after at the end of the week for spring break. Then what they will do is, their bodies will get rested. They'll come back and finish the last part of spring. The only time we can have the spring game would be on that Saturday or Sunday, and Saturday is Texas Relays and we do not want to try to fight the traffic and take away from the Texas Relays. We felt like that's what's best for the players even though it may be an inconvenience for some, when it comes up on Easter like this. We're moving it back late enough that we feel like that it will be okay.
The last thing is that the NCAA has at least put the decision about the future coach on hold, so for the next year nothing will change. The future coach will be able to do exactly what he was doing in the past. We still would like to see the rule change back like it was where in our case Coach Muschamp can do his duties as the defensive coordinator. We don't think it's fair for him, and our staff, to be hurt because of something in the future because there's no advantage for him to be out right now. His duties will still just be as the defensive coordinator and we think that's fair. We'll continue to work really hard to try to get that appeal in place where there will be no change for our staff.
On the NCAA head coach-in-waiting rule: We felt like, from what we could tell, it was someone in the Big East that was in Florida that was talking about the Florida State situation last year. It really wasn't us, from what we can tell. We also feel like that since there's only two now because Kentucky hired their guy and Florida State hired their guy, Maryland and Texas are the only two teams that have this situation. The people that brought it up, I'm sure, don't understand that it would be a detriment to Will not to be able to go out and recruit. There's not an advantage with him going out to recruit because he has an area and a position to recruit anyway. We feel like that probably there was a misunderstanding with the people that put it forth.
On his feelings of why the NCAA pushed the ruling back: I think they felt like this spring is where it was critical because your coordinators do not go out in the fall until the season's over. I think they'll make a decision, from what I am hearing, early next year and they felt like right now they didn't have enough information to go ahead and make a decision. A lot of coaches will start going out in April.
On the new offensive linemen: All those guys have played some. They've played in backup roles and we're seeing Tray Allen and Britt Mitchell step up and do some things. They've been in games where they've done really well but they haven't just stepped up and taken a leadership role. We're starting to see that some now. Kyle Hix and Michael Huey have played. David Snow's played. The other two guys, for instance, Tray Allen's gotten much tougher. He sprained an ankle a little bit on Saturday. He came out and we thought he could be out for the scrimmage. He made them tape it up and put him right back in because he didn't want to miss anything. That's a positive for him, to be strong and tough and confident and want to go back out there and show his teammates that he's ready to be a leader on the team.
On the new direction of the offense: Offensively, what we're trying to do is what we said. We're involved now with, not two backs, as much as an H-back that can be a wide receiver, he can be a tight end or he can be a move guy in the backfield like a moving tight end you see a lot in the NFL. Or he can go back to the fullback position, but we can still be in our four wides because you can flex a tight end and motion your tailback. We feel like that we'll be doing a lot of the same things we've been doing, but we'd like to run downhill more. We'll have a quarterback under the center more and still have the ability to do what we want to do in the passing game. We'd like to keep our ability to throw the ball as well as we have, because we've thrown it as well as anybody in the country, and do a better job of running downhill.
On the backup quarterbacks: Sherrod (Harris) knows what to do, and we're trying to get him to be more consistent, because he's been around a long time. Then you get into that question, would you be better with Sherrod stepping up and working with Garrett (Gilbert) to have an older guy under center if something changes and bring the young ones along, or if Sherrod doesn't step up, then you have to look at one of the two young ones? You have to separate them now where one plays and one redshirts. They're not far enough alone to determine that. I think that will be huge for the second part of the spring. We hope the two young ones can learn enough about what to do in the first part of spring. It's another reason you like to spread it out, so they'll have a chance to show what they can do.
On Chris Whaley's progress: Chris is doing a good job. He keeps coming. We're trying to play him and Cody (Johnson) at tailback and a little at the h-back. We'd like to see what both of them have this spring at tailback. Last spring, Cody did a great job the first part of the spring. Then he went home and came back and pulled a hamstring and really got behind and never got back to where we thought he was at the first of spring. I think you saw today Cody had a good run. Chris had some good runs. All of our backs are in better shape right now, because we're giving them a better chance with the downhill runs. Like with the young quarterbacks, we've just got to see how Chris progresses.
On the backup linebackers: You start looking at Dravannti (Johnson), Ryan (Roberson) and Tariq (Allen). Patrick Nkwopara played a little bit today, but not very much because he has a sore ankle from Saturday. Tariq continues to get better. Ryan is playing really well. He did some good things from last year. As I said, we think Dravannti is probably the leader in that group right now. We've been really impressed with him.
On the receivers: When you look at spring practice, we usually don't say a lot about the older guys, because what they're trying to do is get better, because they've played. They've been there. They know the deal. You start looking at Malcolm (Williams), you look at James (Kirkendoll), John Chiles' weight is much better. He's down. He looks better. He's moving better and running better. Then Marquise (Goodwin) would be in that group. Those are the ones that have played the most that are coming back. Then you've got the DeSean Hales and Greg Timmons. You've got Brock Fitzhenry. You've got guys that are fighting for playing time. Every time they're out there, they're trying to get a coach's attention. Our coaches will go in there right now and they'll grade this film for an hour, hour-and-a-half. We'll go back over it again in the morning. They'll have more opportunities to show what they can do tomorrow. We tell them that all the guys need to be game speed. The (guys like Malcolm) who played last year need to get better. The young ones have to prove they have the right to get in there.
On how big the change to the offense will be: We've done it all before. We think what we're doing is probably inching back more toward the Major (Applewhite), Chris (Simms), Ricky Williams offense. The huge change came when Vince came and we started the zone read. You can keep the plays all named the same. There's little difference. We've always had the I(-formation). We've had the ability to go two-backs. We just feel like that we need to take some pressure off of a young quarterback. We did it with Colt, because he was a really good thrower at that time. He had an older offensive line. He had really good receivers. We thought he could spread out and just get it to guys. We moved in that direction and became a passing team. We'd like to go back to the balance we had when we got here. We'd like to go back and be a 60-40 or 50-50 team, and then on days when they're putting everybody on the line of scrimmage, we'll throw it every snap. We want to have the ability to run it and be physical running when we want to. We really haven't had that for four years. What we'd do every time we'd start to try to do it and work back toward it, Colt would complete 78 percent. So he'd screw it up for us and complete all the passes. We just want to win. It's hard to second guess being 13-1, and if Colt had stayed in there we'd have had a chance to win the National Championship. What we want to do is make sure we stay ahead of the game, and that we're doing, what this team can do the best. (There are) a lot of young players on offense. (There's) a lot of inexperience on the offensive line. There will be some young wide receivers and backs that haven't carried the load yet. We want to go back and be balance enough that we feel like we can help them more.
On the philosophy of running the ball from under center: It's more downhill running to get back to being more aggressive. We got so sideways. We were spread out all over the place. It was hard to use trick plays. It was hard to have much misdirection. It was such a throwing offense that your runs were more like screens and draws. We feel like now we need to be more physical and attack some people.
On the defensive tackle position: Right now Kheeston (Randall) and Sam Acho would be the two tackles. Some of the young ones need to come on. We've got this group of guys. If we played in the opener against Rice today, it would be Sam inside. You would have (Alex) Okafor and Eddie Jones and Kheeston.
On what he's been most pleased with: Their attitude. They don't look like they won 13 games. They feel like they're out working, and I've been pleased that the older guys are stepping up. The last two years leadership has been unbelievable. Last year I was even worried about it some. They came through. This bunch seems to be working on that earlier.
On the team's depth at cornerback: You've got Curtis (Brown), (Aaron) Williams and Chykie (Brown) who have played a lot. All of those guys are really good. We think all three of those guys should be in the NFL at some point in their careers. Then you've got A.J. (White) in that group. It's a blessing that he's here in the spring. He'll get a lot of hard coaching with Duane (Akina), and he'll get good looks against good receivers. So, that should give him a better chance to be ready. Eryon (Barnett) has had the flu for two days, so he wasn't out there today. He's had the sore shoulder. We feel like he's a guy that will get enough done this spring that he'll have a chance. Like the offensive line, we feel like because you will lose two corners, you could lose some other guys to the NFL, that we need to play some of the young secondary guys more and more. I look for us to try to play more people in the secondary and play more people in the offensive line to prepare for a year from now.
On how Garrett Gilbert has been under center: I would have thought that Garrett had been under center every snap of his career. He went under center quite a bit in practice this fall. So, he's ahead. The other two freshmen have had a little trouble with it, because it's totally new for them. It's something we need to do. It'll help them later on in the NFL, because some of them now are having to do both. It'll help us, because we want to run the ball and have play action more. It's hard to do that as much if you're sitting in a position where you're spread out all the time and only in the shotgun. Like I said, when we did it, we liked it.
We were very fortunate. Jim Caldwell came down from the Indianapolis Colts. We had a great high school clinic, and he spoke for over an hour and answered questions for the high school coaches. He was so gracious. He stayed and listened to the lectures after that. He even stayed and talked to coaches until 10:30 or 11. I told him, Sam Acho really helped himself. We were walking out of the lectures at 10:30 and we walked by the academic center and Sam was on the computer. I said, "Okay Sam, I know you knew I was going to bring Coach Caldwell by here and that's why you're sitting here on the computer. Are you doing any work?" He got up and came over and talked to Coach Caldwell. Jim spent a couple hours with our offense. We felt like there was a lot of good questions and answers, and sharing that should help us as well. The Colts have been really good to us over the last few years.
On if they have met with any other teams: Right now Boise (State) and the Indianapolis Colts are the only two that have come in. We'll usually bring some more people in after spring, but those are the only two that we have visited with in the first part.
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