jersey sooner
3/22/2011, 10:42 PM
Had waaaaaaaaay too much time on my hands yesterday...but if anyone didn't want to listen to it, here you go. This is anything I found remotely noteworthy. It's mostly just BS from BS, but there's a few interesting points. Enjoy...
...I feel that in all the positions we lose guys we have quality guys ready to step up and play
Can you talk about the move of Colvin to safety, and is that going to be an experimental thing, or can you guys see him as a safety in his future?
It's experimental, but I believe it's going to be great for us....that position in todays world, much like we moved Jonathan Nelson from corner to that position because of his speed and athleticism, the way that strong safety plays in todays world, the guy has to have corner like ability, to run, to change direction ...because of the nature of so many spread out teams that position is usually out to the split side of the field where theres 2, 3 receivers, and alot of times even if he's playing zone and gets some underneath coverage, anything down the middle of the field he's in a man position against a speed receiver and a slot receiver....so it's not like the old days of 2 te's, where that guys taking on blockers, filling holes, that isn't so much of the position anymore....80, 90 percent of the time he's out in the spread position ....so that worked really well for us with Johnathan, and Aaron is an excellent athlete, we saw that a year ago, and believe that's going to be great for him and the team
For the love of God, please let Bama lose a game and the quack attack run the table.
Do you believe Jamell Flemming will be back and what would happen with Colvin if he does come back?
Since he's not here i'm not gonna talk about him since I'm not sure whether i'm allowed to or not, so i'll just talk about the guys that are here right now
Doesn't sound too promising...
several years ago in 05 after you hit some of your problems during the season you alluded to the fact that you saw some of this building in the offseason as early as January in some of the lack of committment or whatever...what have you seen in january february, and here in the second and third week of march...what have you seen to make you think this is a good group
well theres no comparison...look at all the guys we lost of the 2004 season, so we had a bunch of guys coming back in 2005 that really hadn't played much, if at all, that thought they were like the guys in 2004 and at the end of the day they hadn't earned that, they hadn't earned that.. on the field in experience, gaining the strength and speed in the weight room, to have those expectations...and i didn't feel at that time that we really overall, the players work habits were where they had been in 2003 04 and some of the better years that we've had and again I think alot of it was immaturity..thinking just because you're here it happens....these guys have played alot, these guys that are coming back, the experience that they have, have played alot on the field, do know what it takes...in the winter their attitude and all has been much like it was a year ago in that they were a really fun group to coach because they accepted coaching they pushed their self, they like being on the field, they like competing and they really have done that through the winter
This I found very interesting. I never heard this, and it kind of sounds like he didn't have control of the 05 team. A little bit worrisome...
Can you talk about guys that ended the season injured...Ronnell Lewis, Roy Finch, Calhoun, Dejuan Miller...what their status is at this point?
Roy is expected to go...Ronnell is expected to go, though we want to be smart on how much we give him, but right now, he went through the whole second half of our winter with no problems, and is feeling good, so he's really been cleared to go...Dejuan is expected to be cleared this week, if not today...Jermie isn't quite ready, but healing fine and doing well
Good.
...Millard, Ratterree, they weren't cleared because of injury?
Trey Millard and Ratterree...they won't get any spring ball...but they're healing fine, and it's just the nature of that...it takes about 4 monthes for them to get beyond it
Not good. When the hell did Millard get hurt?
You had three fresman that graduated early to go through spring, from what you know of it already how have they done?
They've done really well, they handled the workouts well which always is a big indicator...alot of times a guy will come in and can't handle the workout...but these guys all managed it pretty well
What about one of the first impressions of Brandon Williams?
Very exciting guy to be around, and to coach, really competititve.. you watch him and he's one of those guys, he's got great power and strength, can run forever...we have some one on one competitive situations in front of the team and he really stood out...very very competitive and tough...he's got a bunch of talent, so he's going to be exciting to watch...we're very optimistic about him
The absence of the word special is definitely noticeable.
Before the injury in the Fiesta Bowl, Ronnell was playing really well, like the last 3, 4 games, can you talk about his development and how excited you guys are to see him?
It was great to see his natural ability really just start to happen, of course theres a lot of thought that goes into, but really the best players just play instinctively...he just got to where he was finally comfortable in the defense, what we're asking him to do, the different assignments...in the end he really showed it, he really came on and played well in the last 4 or 5 games, and he'll only get better from it, the more experience he now has on the field...he's always gaining strength and power, if that's at all possible
Music to my ears.
Would you prefer to be better and deeper at defensive tackle (what a jackass lol) or are you fine going ahead with the 50 front and doing those things?
No, we'll work in and out of both...we've got plenty of depth there now at the defensive tackle position to play our 4 man front...it's just what we feel in different games what, what we feel gives us a better advantage, and how we want to play...so still we'll work both of them
Then there was the kicking question
We still have that?
Yea where are you, what have you seen?
We'll see...those guys say they've been in there workin hard...I'm not allowed to be in there when they're kicking but we'll see how hard they've been working once we get out there today...but in all fairness I think it's fair to say that Jimmy really did a great job for us a year ago, made some clutch kicks...so he doesn't have a 50 yard leg, and that's ok, if he can be great in the intermediate to short range it gives us a big boost...hopefully we can find one of these guys to come on and be better with the longer range, is what we'll be looking for, and a little more strength kicking off...so there wil be alot of focus on that with us here in the spring, and whoever we can find coming in here next fall
Is Tress still the kickoff guy?
We'll see, sometimes that really strains his leg, and then it doesn't help him punting the ball...Patrick still has the biggest leg if he can get a little more consistency in hitting his kickoffs, so hopefully when we get out here in the spring he will have improved some through the winter
Jesus Christ, Bob. How hard is it to find a high school kid who can kick 50 yards and get him laid on campus?
You seemed to get in a situation last year where if it was a long field go situation you didn't have a problem going for it on 4th down, is there some benefits to that?
Yea if you make it
But have you ever thought with your coaches when evaluating you just don't go for it enough on 4th down?
To a degree... I think some of it depends on, for the most part we have always played good defense, so if you are playing good defense I don't think the risk reward of giving them the ball in good field position, whether it be at the 50, 40, or 45...you see all the percentages a teams percentage of scoring the closer they are inside of 60 inside of 50 the percentages go up so to me the percentages still matter, and if your playing good defense, you'd rather back somebody up and make them have to go a ways to earn that, or a few first downs to earn their points...so if you're not playing good defense I think you're right, theres a lot of merit to, they're gonna be back at the 50 in 2 plays anyway...and to be honest theres been games we've gone into, I made coach Wilson aware times last year, make sure we have enough 4th down calls, and a few situations in particular inside the 40, because we aren't going to go for a long field goal, and if it's 4th and medium to short and I feel that our opportunity is good to make it, we need to be ready to go for it
This is all fine and dandy, but he made it sound like there is only one side to the coin. I hope he knows that if your defense is playing well, you also have more leeway to try and throw a knock out hay maker. Because your defense is playing well. And they can bail you out.
Can you talk about any changes that Josh Huepel might bring, you've got backs there that might do well in different types of offenses
In the end we're going to be very similar to what we've always done...again I think part of spring is you evolve and start to see which players are really good doing what, and try to always play to players strengths...but to me the basis of the offense still revolves around primarily what your quarterback does the best, and from there your tailback, you go back to the days before adrian peterson and we operated more in a shotgun, when we had AD he was best behind the quarterback about 8 yards deep, and we did more of that, and play actioned off of him...in the end we'll kind of see when we get these backs out there and what they're doing the best, and Landry is most comfortable with. but it won't change alot as you guys know we have a lot of formations we are under center about as much as we're not, so in the end of the day who's in there and what seems to fit them the best is what we'll play too, we have a lot of variety there to go to, and we'll see how much of what we like the best
Are you going to scrap the fullback anytime soon?
Heck no, he's one of the best players on our team...so I'd like to see us enhance more, with Trey he's such a good athlete, using him even more at HBack or even Tight End, just to keep him on the field, because he's that type of player
How do you evaluate how physical your team was a year ago, were you please with it, do you want it better this year?
It's never good enough, so of course to me it's the name of the game, we're always working for it, but we were physical enough to win the big xii and the fiesta bowl, but we were'nt physical enough to win all games...that's part of what we'll really be working on and emphasizing here in the spring
Hope this is BS, and not BS.
Were you too inconsistant on the line, especially in the interior, last year?
That's fair to say, maybe not just interior but just across the board...and defensively, when you look up front in a couple of the games we lost, they ran the football on us more than we're used to, and it hurt us, it changed the game...so both sides of the ball, particularyly the games that we lost, we were'nt as physical and solid as we needed to be
Do you feel that at defensive tackle they just need to mature, do you think you have the guys there they just have to mature?
I believe they should be better and improve, but it's more than just them, some of those problems we had in those games wasn't just them, it was D ends, it could have been backers at times, so everyone could have had a hand in it
Red zone offense was a problem in scoring from close, in your evaluation what did you see you need to do better in that regard?
A lot of it execution wise get's down to players were targeting who we're coming off on and then technique, being in a stronger better position to move people, so it's something we'll get a lot of work on here in the spring and emphasize, so it's a little bit of both it's a little bit of mental, who were going after and how we're doing it, and the other part is even if you know what you're doing getting the right leverage and being able to move somebody
I really hope Josh scraps the hurry-up I off tackle run.
Have you talked to the club any about all the offseason hype, being ranked number one, and then taking it a step further as a staff, Texas plummetted lasty year, do you ever look at what happened to them and then talk internally about what you need to do, and how fragile things can be?
Sure, I'm not speaking at all about Texas, I wasn't there and don't know any of their deal, but in the end we're always talking regardless of what our expectations or rankings are, our expectations internally are always pretty high, and our whole focus in talking to them is what are we going to go do about it, how do we go about earning this, that's what we did in the winter and felt great about the way we came out of that...now it's the second part of the whole year process spring ball so how are we going to change and develop as a team with what we do on the field, so we talk alot to our guys about earning what you get, they've had that kind of attitude so we'll see as we move foreward
Austin Box and Tom Wort kind of had a going back and forth at the middle linebacker spot last year, do you anticipate that being the case again this year?
sure, those guys are excellent competitiors that played alot, we'll see who can be the most consistent through the spring and summer, but sure I expect those guys to keep competing
I hope we don't have to rely on Tom to be our full-time Mike.
...I feel that in all the positions we lose guys we have quality guys ready to step up and play
Can you talk about the move of Colvin to safety, and is that going to be an experimental thing, or can you guys see him as a safety in his future?
It's experimental, but I believe it's going to be great for us....that position in todays world, much like we moved Jonathan Nelson from corner to that position because of his speed and athleticism, the way that strong safety plays in todays world, the guy has to have corner like ability, to run, to change direction ...because of the nature of so many spread out teams that position is usually out to the split side of the field where theres 2, 3 receivers, and alot of times even if he's playing zone and gets some underneath coverage, anything down the middle of the field he's in a man position against a speed receiver and a slot receiver....so it's not like the old days of 2 te's, where that guys taking on blockers, filling holes, that isn't so much of the position anymore....80, 90 percent of the time he's out in the spread position ....so that worked really well for us with Johnathan, and Aaron is an excellent athlete, we saw that a year ago, and believe that's going to be great for him and the team
For the love of God, please let Bama lose a game and the quack attack run the table.
Do you believe Jamell Flemming will be back and what would happen with Colvin if he does come back?
Since he's not here i'm not gonna talk about him since I'm not sure whether i'm allowed to or not, so i'll just talk about the guys that are here right now
Doesn't sound too promising...
several years ago in 05 after you hit some of your problems during the season you alluded to the fact that you saw some of this building in the offseason as early as January in some of the lack of committment or whatever...what have you seen in january february, and here in the second and third week of march...what have you seen to make you think this is a good group
well theres no comparison...look at all the guys we lost of the 2004 season, so we had a bunch of guys coming back in 2005 that really hadn't played much, if at all, that thought they were like the guys in 2004 and at the end of the day they hadn't earned that, they hadn't earned that.. on the field in experience, gaining the strength and speed in the weight room, to have those expectations...and i didn't feel at that time that we really overall, the players work habits were where they had been in 2003 04 and some of the better years that we've had and again I think alot of it was immaturity..thinking just because you're here it happens....these guys have played alot, these guys that are coming back, the experience that they have, have played alot on the field, do know what it takes...in the winter their attitude and all has been much like it was a year ago in that they were a really fun group to coach because they accepted coaching they pushed their self, they like being on the field, they like competing and they really have done that through the winter
This I found very interesting. I never heard this, and it kind of sounds like he didn't have control of the 05 team. A little bit worrisome...
Can you talk about guys that ended the season injured...Ronnell Lewis, Roy Finch, Calhoun, Dejuan Miller...what their status is at this point?
Roy is expected to go...Ronnell is expected to go, though we want to be smart on how much we give him, but right now, he went through the whole second half of our winter with no problems, and is feeling good, so he's really been cleared to go...Dejuan is expected to be cleared this week, if not today...Jermie isn't quite ready, but healing fine and doing well
Good.
...Millard, Ratterree, they weren't cleared because of injury?
Trey Millard and Ratterree...they won't get any spring ball...but they're healing fine, and it's just the nature of that...it takes about 4 monthes for them to get beyond it
Not good. When the hell did Millard get hurt?
You had three fresman that graduated early to go through spring, from what you know of it already how have they done?
They've done really well, they handled the workouts well which always is a big indicator...alot of times a guy will come in and can't handle the workout...but these guys all managed it pretty well
What about one of the first impressions of Brandon Williams?
Very exciting guy to be around, and to coach, really competititve.. you watch him and he's one of those guys, he's got great power and strength, can run forever...we have some one on one competitive situations in front of the team and he really stood out...very very competitive and tough...he's got a bunch of talent, so he's going to be exciting to watch...we're very optimistic about him
The absence of the word special is definitely noticeable.
Before the injury in the Fiesta Bowl, Ronnell was playing really well, like the last 3, 4 games, can you talk about his development and how excited you guys are to see him?
It was great to see his natural ability really just start to happen, of course theres a lot of thought that goes into, but really the best players just play instinctively...he just got to where he was finally comfortable in the defense, what we're asking him to do, the different assignments...in the end he really showed it, he really came on and played well in the last 4 or 5 games, and he'll only get better from it, the more experience he now has on the field...he's always gaining strength and power, if that's at all possible
Music to my ears.
Would you prefer to be better and deeper at defensive tackle (what a jackass lol) or are you fine going ahead with the 50 front and doing those things?
No, we'll work in and out of both...we've got plenty of depth there now at the defensive tackle position to play our 4 man front...it's just what we feel in different games what, what we feel gives us a better advantage, and how we want to play...so still we'll work both of them
Then there was the kicking question
We still have that?
Yea where are you, what have you seen?
We'll see...those guys say they've been in there workin hard...I'm not allowed to be in there when they're kicking but we'll see how hard they've been working once we get out there today...but in all fairness I think it's fair to say that Jimmy really did a great job for us a year ago, made some clutch kicks...so he doesn't have a 50 yard leg, and that's ok, if he can be great in the intermediate to short range it gives us a big boost...hopefully we can find one of these guys to come on and be better with the longer range, is what we'll be looking for, and a little more strength kicking off...so there wil be alot of focus on that with us here in the spring, and whoever we can find coming in here next fall
Is Tress still the kickoff guy?
We'll see, sometimes that really strains his leg, and then it doesn't help him punting the ball...Patrick still has the biggest leg if he can get a little more consistency in hitting his kickoffs, so hopefully when we get out here in the spring he will have improved some through the winter
Jesus Christ, Bob. How hard is it to find a high school kid who can kick 50 yards and get him laid on campus?
You seemed to get in a situation last year where if it was a long field go situation you didn't have a problem going for it on 4th down, is there some benefits to that?
Yea if you make it
But have you ever thought with your coaches when evaluating you just don't go for it enough on 4th down?
To a degree... I think some of it depends on, for the most part we have always played good defense, so if you are playing good defense I don't think the risk reward of giving them the ball in good field position, whether it be at the 50, 40, or 45...you see all the percentages a teams percentage of scoring the closer they are inside of 60 inside of 50 the percentages go up so to me the percentages still matter, and if your playing good defense, you'd rather back somebody up and make them have to go a ways to earn that, or a few first downs to earn their points...so if you're not playing good defense I think you're right, theres a lot of merit to, they're gonna be back at the 50 in 2 plays anyway...and to be honest theres been games we've gone into, I made coach Wilson aware times last year, make sure we have enough 4th down calls, and a few situations in particular inside the 40, because we aren't going to go for a long field goal, and if it's 4th and medium to short and I feel that our opportunity is good to make it, we need to be ready to go for it
This is all fine and dandy, but he made it sound like there is only one side to the coin. I hope he knows that if your defense is playing well, you also have more leeway to try and throw a knock out hay maker. Because your defense is playing well. And they can bail you out.
Can you talk about any changes that Josh Huepel might bring, you've got backs there that might do well in different types of offenses
In the end we're going to be very similar to what we've always done...again I think part of spring is you evolve and start to see which players are really good doing what, and try to always play to players strengths...but to me the basis of the offense still revolves around primarily what your quarterback does the best, and from there your tailback, you go back to the days before adrian peterson and we operated more in a shotgun, when we had AD he was best behind the quarterback about 8 yards deep, and we did more of that, and play actioned off of him...in the end we'll kind of see when we get these backs out there and what they're doing the best, and Landry is most comfortable with. but it won't change alot as you guys know we have a lot of formations we are under center about as much as we're not, so in the end of the day who's in there and what seems to fit them the best is what we'll play too, we have a lot of variety there to go to, and we'll see how much of what we like the best
Are you going to scrap the fullback anytime soon?
Heck no, he's one of the best players on our team...so I'd like to see us enhance more, with Trey he's such a good athlete, using him even more at HBack or even Tight End, just to keep him on the field, because he's that type of player
How do you evaluate how physical your team was a year ago, were you please with it, do you want it better this year?
It's never good enough, so of course to me it's the name of the game, we're always working for it, but we were physical enough to win the big xii and the fiesta bowl, but we were'nt physical enough to win all games...that's part of what we'll really be working on and emphasizing here in the spring
Hope this is BS, and not BS.
Were you too inconsistant on the line, especially in the interior, last year?
That's fair to say, maybe not just interior but just across the board...and defensively, when you look up front in a couple of the games we lost, they ran the football on us more than we're used to, and it hurt us, it changed the game...so both sides of the ball, particularyly the games that we lost, we were'nt as physical and solid as we needed to be
Do you feel that at defensive tackle they just need to mature, do you think you have the guys there they just have to mature?
I believe they should be better and improve, but it's more than just them, some of those problems we had in those games wasn't just them, it was D ends, it could have been backers at times, so everyone could have had a hand in it
Red zone offense was a problem in scoring from close, in your evaluation what did you see you need to do better in that regard?
A lot of it execution wise get's down to players were targeting who we're coming off on and then technique, being in a stronger better position to move people, so it's something we'll get a lot of work on here in the spring and emphasize, so it's a little bit of both it's a little bit of mental, who were going after and how we're doing it, and the other part is even if you know what you're doing getting the right leverage and being able to move somebody
I really hope Josh scraps the hurry-up I off tackle run.
Have you talked to the club any about all the offseason hype, being ranked number one, and then taking it a step further as a staff, Texas plummetted lasty year, do you ever look at what happened to them and then talk internally about what you need to do, and how fragile things can be?
Sure, I'm not speaking at all about Texas, I wasn't there and don't know any of their deal, but in the end we're always talking regardless of what our expectations or rankings are, our expectations internally are always pretty high, and our whole focus in talking to them is what are we going to go do about it, how do we go about earning this, that's what we did in the winter and felt great about the way we came out of that...now it's the second part of the whole year process spring ball so how are we going to change and develop as a team with what we do on the field, so we talk alot to our guys about earning what you get, they've had that kind of attitude so we'll see as we move foreward
Austin Box and Tom Wort kind of had a going back and forth at the middle linebacker spot last year, do you anticipate that being the case again this year?
sure, those guys are excellent competitiors that played alot, we'll see who can be the most consistent through the spring and summer, but sure I expect those guys to keep competing
I hope we don't have to rely on Tom to be our full-time Mike.