(New coaches on staff) We want to do simple better. There’s two things, playing hard and playing together. It’s easy to say all that, it’s just way, way hard to do. You think of all the ways you can get in the way of that. If you sit back and think OK who’s going to do the start of this and who’s going to do the start of that. You can wrack your brain right there with some of the depth we’ve got. The danger there is the coaches want to get in the way and kind of solve it all with plays, and what it really needs to be is the players playing their technique and the players serving themselves. So I think it to keep it simple, if that takes place is the first win of the spring. So to continue to do that, what we need to see is the receiver is doing a press and he has to beat the dude across from him and catch a slant vs. press coverage on third-and-five when it matters a lot. We’ve got to have a defender through all of our stuff, we show numbers over there, and if he’s got a one-on-one, we’ve got to get to where he can do his primary rush and beat that primary protect, and we need to beat that one-on-one. Those aren’t plays necessarily, those are techniques and that’s confidence. It’s a players’ game, and the majority of it is to do simple better for that.
(Bringing in more transfers this year) It is different. I talked to some alumni after practice, I was talking to Teck (Sam Tecklenburg), I haven’t seen him in a while, and I was talking about the team. I think we’re about 75 percent sophomore, redshirt freshmen and freshmen. and a lot of the veterans are transfers. Those are the older guys. I was telling Teck that and I feel that I’m proud of the effort our coaches have done in identifying those guys. I think there are a lot of potential team leaders in that group. We talked about they’re attacking school, how they’re treating people daily, and they’ve really been waiting for the football part to start to assert themselves. I’m excited to see that go. But it is a different feel. Usually I have young guys meetings, and we had to cut it to the true freshmen. I think all of it is a good thing and that all of it are strengths that as coaches we have to embrace and use in all of it, so I’m excited. I think the veterans, the transfers we have that we got the right ones. I’m excited about their development.
(What do you want to see from the O-line this year) I want to be able to see them, when it’s a running play, run off the ball, finish blocks. When the running back is on the ground, pick them up, help them back to the line of scrimmage. When it’s a pass play, and we’ve got to have his block, I want to see him give great effort to try to get that done. And you want to like a grit and toughness and ‘I care about this, and this matters a lot to me. And I don’t want to let this person next to me down, and I will give my left arm to be able to get this block.’ We want to see that. And it’s helpful a lot of times when you have young people, because I think sometimes if you’re a vet and kind of know everything that goes into it, sometimes you’re to test the waters and do it all again can be a thing. And when you’re young, you don’t know. You think it’s just straight up, and you don’t know that you’ve got to go down before you go up. So, I think they’re fully attacking it, which I think is cool for us.
(About Coach Powledge being back, what has he brought) A lot of energy. Pow (Powledge) is a favorite of the group. Just today, at the end of practice I was talking to Vic Viloria, our strength coach about, ‘What do you think? What did you see?’ And he was saying, ‘Man, the defense had so much energy.’ And I think that’s a direct reflection of Pow and the coaches that we got. I thought Christian Robinson did a great job today, really teaching and motivating and all that. We talk to them about play hard and play together. To play hard, a lot of times, is a decision between you and you. But I think more than that, it’s, I’m going to play hard because I don’t want to let the person to my left and right down. I don’t want to let my coach down. And then, I think the play together is there’s such a connective part of you know our job, you know the person to the left and right’s job, and you’re all disciplined. And you’re all detailed out in terms of, you can count on me, I’m going to do my 1/11th. I think it takes someone that knows ball. But it also takes someone that knows people. Two very different things. So, to have a dude that can do both, I’m excited about that.
(going through that tough stretch last season, was there something you were able to pinpoint something for the struggles) I think I probably was too lenient with guys. I think I probably tried to help too many guys that I think probably needed maybe a tougher version of me. I probably gave too many guys chances that were probably taking advantage of me or those chances. I go back to those times, though, it’s like you’re trying to . . . I don’t know, sometimes it’s like, I don’t know if all the wins from the previous year kind of just makes you think that you can fix all this stuff. I hope that’s not the case. I don’t know if that is, but I think when I go back to least trying to lock in, it’s like, ‘Dude, I’m trying to help this person and he’s got to get over this hump or do this or do that.’ And I think in the midst of that, the helping of him or the so-called, I guess, helping of him, I think there was a hurting of the team. And that’s a big lesson for me.
