| [Question]: |
Coach, how did things go today? |
| [Coach]: |
Probably a little better than yesterday. We had more guys that finished practice, but we went a little slower it seemed. At times, our tempo wasn't as good, and then, of course, the weather was a lot cooler today... so it was OK. The freshmen quarterbacks got a lot of reps because Pat White strained a little muscle in his side. So, he did some things in practice, but there were a lot of things he didn't do. So, he didn't do much today. That gave Nate and Jarrett a lot of reps, and they need them. |
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| [Question]: |
Any concern about Pat, I mean in the long term? |
| [Coach]: |
Nahhh. I'm hoping he should practice tomorrow. But, we'll wait and see how that progresses. |
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| [Question]: |
Glad to get into pads? |
| [Coach]: |
Yeah, we need to get into pads. There's so many things you can't do until you're in full gear. Obviously, the intensity will be picked up a little bit. I hope our guys are anxious to get them as well. |
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| [Question]: |
Rich, do you ever back off on your quarterbacks because you've only got three of them... just as far as throwing the ball? |
| [Coach]: |
Yeah. We were limited today, obviously, with just two guys throwing it. Really, in camp we have not nearly as many of those guys as we'd like to. What hurts is it cuts your reps with your wide receivers and backs catching, and the tight ends. So, we had to slow down a little bit. I'm not comfortable with having just three. That problem is certainly going to be alleviated next year. |
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| [Question]: |
What are the pluses and minuses at this point with those two guys... battling for number 2? |
| [Coach]: |
Well, I think the pluses are they're both really good athletes, and I think they can do all the things we ask our quarterbacks to do as far as running it and throwing it. The minus obviously is experience. I think they're more comfortable with what we're doing. You know, every day for instance, they go against our defense they see something different. Different coverage. Different blitz. It's the first time for a lot of them. And then they see the film, and I think they learn from it. But, they're still going to learn on the run. That's why you hope to be able to ease them in, as opposed to having to force them to take reps right away if something were to happen to Pat. |
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| [Question]: |
Any other news on the injury front? Jalloh? |
| [Coach]: |
Jalloh's still day to day, and probably a couple of days away. From what I understand with those kind of injuries, if you come back too soon, it's just going to start all over again. So, we want to make sure he's right before he starts back. |
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| [Question]: |
Is Greg Davis practicing? |
| [Coach]: |
Yeah, Greg Davis is practicing. He's so far out of shape it's hard to get an evaluation on him, to be honest with you. He's not nearly where the other guys are. He's shown some athleticism, but he's got a long way to go. |
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| [Question]: |
Have you seen much at all... have you been able to assess him or Dervil, either one? |
| [Coach]: |
We'd seen more out of Guesly because he was here in the summer and he was in a little better shape when we started camp. But really, it's been hard to tell because we haven't gone really live in the secondary, as far as who will hit you, and what kind of role they'll be able to help us in. I think one or two of them may help. Guesly probably ahead of Greg and the other corners. |
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| [Question]: |
Are one or two of them going to have to play? |
| [Coach]: |
I don't know. It really depends on how Kent Richardson comes along. Vaughn Rivers is playing pretty well so far. You know, he's obviously the third corner behind Larry and Antonio. And Kent Richardson is the guy that has been OK so far. He's the guy we really want to see in full pads... if he'll be physical. And if he does, he'll be the fourth back. |
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| [Question]: |
How many do you need to be comfortable? Five? Four? |
| [Coach]: |
Corners? Four. I mean, it helps to have five, but I think some of our safety guys can play in space a little bit, like Wicks and Pugh and Ridwan Malik and I think Quinton Andrews and Ham Jones. So we've got a little bit of speed back there. But there's no question you're going to need four healthy corners throughout the season. |
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| [Question]: |
Does that help you in your dime situation with the safeties, because before you played mainly corners in those dime situations? |
| [Coach]: |
Yeah, and we did that to just try to pick the best next guy. You know, we haven't really gotten in our dime yet. With our defense, the way it's configured, you're in a nickle package to start with. So, you're really only adding one more guy when you're getting into a true so-called dime package. |
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| [Question]: |
Mortty? |
| [Coach]: |
Mortty's not 100%. He's still in a green shirt, but he's doing more and more each day. |
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| [Question]: |
How did Pat get hurt? |
| [Coach]: |
I think he was just making a move running down field, and it was one of those deals where you twist the wrong way and it strains a muscle. You and I probably do it walking down the street. Pat was running full speed. But, nah, it's nothing. They said it's nothing. Nothing major. It's just more precautionary today. I didn't mind it too bad, because it gave those guys a lot of reps... the young guys. But, with only two quarterbacks, their arms are going to get sore if we're not careful. |
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| [Question]: |
Second day in shells, do you start to ramp up the hitting as you go along? |
| [Coach]: |
Well, we will tomorrow. We've been playing a little love tap the last few practices. This time tomorrow, to hit a little bit, to be a little more physical... we'll have some live periods. It'll be maybe 15 to 20 minutes tomorrow that's full live, and then get back after it again. |
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| [Question]: |
Will you let the quarterbacks get hit? |
| [Coach]: |
No. Not intentionally. They'll be hands off. Now, I say that with reservation. If I think Nate or Jarrett need that because fundamentals are poor or something like that, I'll put it on them for a scrimmage or something. But, right now, we're anticipating keeping them hands off. |
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| [Question]: |
If you had more quarterbacks, you wouldn't worry about it, would you? |
| [Coach]: |
Yeah, if we had more that I thought we could ready to play. They're all young. The nice part is they're all back for several more years. |
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| [Question]: |
Having three, is that the fewest you've had? |
| [Coach]: |
No, it was similar to... what year was it... three years ago or so, when we had Rasheed, Charles Hales, and I think Adam Bednarik might have been a true freshman. I remember when Rasheed got hurt, Charles Hales was there. If something were to happen to Charles Hales, the first guy off the bus was taking snaps. That was really, really scary. At least we've got three. I really feel that we'll have three that will be ready to go. So we have a little bit more depth there. But, I know after this year, it'll be more than three. Every year. |
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| [Question]: |
Do you get Dwayne Thompson a couple snaps just for emergency situations? |
| [Coach]: |
Nah. If you've got three guys hurt, your luck is so bad, don't ever go out with the clouds up and a threat of lightning, because it's going to happen. I shouldn't have said that, huh. |
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| [Question]: |
Talking about speed in your defensive backfield, linebackers too... with the way you guys stack them up, how important is that? |
| [Coach]: |
Yeah, we're deeper at linebacker. We'd like to have six, seven guys that can play back there. Some of them are situational guys, like Reed Williams and Bobby Hathaway... they're 1 and 1a at one linebacker spot. Marc Magro and Jay Henry are 1 and 1a at middle linebacker. And Mortty Ivy, when he's healthy, will be right there with Boo McLee. So there's six guys at least, right there, then you throw in Barry Wright who's gotten better. And, Ovid Goulbourne. There's eight guys, maybe nine guys, that we think might be ready to play some linebacker. That's more than we've ever had. |
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| [Question]: |
Speed wise, though... You were talking about Boo yesterday and the way you kind of slowed it down a little mentally and figured it out. Sometimes you were saying he gets somewhere too fast. Is fast sometimes a bad thing? |
| [Coach]: |
Well, you want your guys to play fast. That's the trick. Especially if they're fast guys, you want them to play fast. But, you want your whole team to play fast. You've got to have your schemes simple enough so they can do that. But, at the same time, if you can have multiple schemes and different looks and still play fast, then you've got the best of everything. That's what we want. |
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| [Question]: |
The contact portion of drills... obviously risk/reward there. Have you changed your philosophy? It seems that coaches don't hit as much as they did maybe 15 to 20 years ago. |
| [Coach]: |
There's no question. I think everybody's changed their philosophy. Part of it is the 85 scholarship limit. And, really you're not playing with 85 guys, because there's 20 of them that are usually freshmen. So, basically you're playing with about a 60 man roster. Which is like the NFL does, but the difference with the NFL is if they get a guy hurt, they just pull one off the waiver wire. We can't really do that. For us, it's a 17 or 18 year old kid, you know that's really not ready to play. You have to be careful, but at the same time you've got to still establish that toughness and that hard edge that you want to play with. That's the fine line that every coach is looking for at this point. |
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| [Jim]: |
How pleased are you with the conditioning of the offensive and defensive line? |
| [Coach]: |
I think the guys up front are in pretty good shape. They've not gotten taxed much. Yesterday was a little warm. We only have 4 days of two-a-days the way the calendar is. I'm waiting to see when we have one-a-days and two-a-days when it's really hot and we grind through two practices. Then I can really judge where we're at conditioning-wise. I'm hoping it'll come, because we've got our first two-a-day Thursday. |
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| [Question]: |
It was hot out there today, wasn't it? |
| [Coach]: |
No, it was cool, compared to what the humidity has been. You can tell by the number of guys that hung around after practice. We always tell them to work on a little extra, and if they feel like it they'll do some different skill work on their own. Yesterday, there weren't a whole lot out there. Today, there were a lot of guys out there. So, that was pleasing to see that part. |
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| [Question]: |
Coach, your return guys... any new guys? |
| [Coach]: |
Quinton Andrews may be back there in a backup punt return role. Guesly Dervil. Then, the same guys... Rivers, Lewis, Reynaud, and Bruce will be the main guys again. |
| --- Jim |
