MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (Feb. 28, 2018) – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018, at the Milan Puskar Center.
Opening Statement
You can see our newly-renovated, old team room. We have a little bit of soundproof on here so you can have a little bit of privacy. We blocked this off – (receivers) Coach (Tyron) Carrier actually sits like three feet on the other side right there and sometimes (associate head coach – defensive coordinator/linebackers) (Tony Gibson) sits here, and they try to out-scream themselves. We still have the weight room, you can hear that music in there, so this is still going to be a renovated area at some point, but we have made it a little bit more functional. It does make you appreciate the new one that we have. The reason we aren’t in there – I think everybody knows this – but the reason we aren’t in there is because they are redoing the training room underneath it. They were nervous about 120 200- to 300-pound people sitting in a room that might collapse and set us back for a whole year. As long as we’re making progress, we’ll deal with about anything.
There’s a rumor that we started spring yesterday, I don’t really agree with that. We start on Saturday, which you guys will be able to see the guys in an actual helmet and jersey. With the NCAA rules and regulations, you have to have some non-contact practices. We’ve been with them together after recruiting for, I believe, this is the fourth week. I think (assistant athletic director for strength and conditioning) Mike (Joseph) had them for like two weeks. We came back and had some offseason stuff for like three weeks, which, really, what we’re doing this week isn’t any different than what we did last week. We’re still lifting a lot; we’re installing things. We’ve been able to meet with them for a couple of hours per week the previous three weeks – that’s not a whole lot different than what we’re doing this week. We can go do some instructional stuff outside. It is a little bit more beneficial to be able to go out there and count it as one of the 15 days because we can use them all and stay out there for some real, real, real non-competitive stuff. That’s where we are currently at, and we’ll do the same stuff tomorrow. We aren’t out there very long, and it doesn’t even really look like football. Saturday, we’ll turn the page and start having a little bit of resistance with each other.
You guys know the schedule; that’s what we are doing it, I haven’t even really had to explain it to anybody. There was an article written yesterday, I guess, that explains everything else that we’re doing this spring, so I’m not going to go into it. If you guys have questions, then we can talk about it.
I’m excited about this group, the 2018 group. It’s probably, obviously offensively, the most veteran unit that we’ve had since I’ve been here. Defensively, I feel good about, just based on (Gibson) going into the fifth year, it seems like he’s been here for a while. He’s been here six years – he’s been here forever – but the coordinator aspect of it for the fifth year gives everybody comfort. I just like where the guys are right now, and I wanted to get started. I’m looking forward to a good spring. I like how it’s broken up, I think it will reduce the monotony of spring football that everybody deals with. You can say, ‘Well, how can you get tired of practicing football?’ Well, I can assure you these guys get tired of practicing football in the spring. Being able to have breaks with spring practice and with Easter break will break up that monotony aspect of it. We’ll finish earlier this year than we ever have, which means we’ll have more time to heal and get ready for the actual season.
The sixth and seventh of April should be a good spring weekend. You’re flipping coins on whether the weather is going to be appropriate or not. There’s nothing you can do about that, so we’ll just deal with it and roll through it. But, it’ll be a good weekend, obviously it’s a big weekend for WVU athletics and WVU Medicine Children’s, the relationship that exists there. My man (Dale Wolfley) here does a great job of cultivating this relationship as well. The whole weekend is going to be about the kids, obviously football, and then about the kids as well. I put something out on my Twitter a little bit ago just as far as the partnership that football has with Jeff Hostetler. That relationship has existed for many, many years, and we want to continue to strengthen that relationship. He does such a great job over at the hospital with his foundation, the Hoss Foundation. He built the family resource center over there, which I’ve been over there hanging out a little bit, I know (Wolfley) has been over there. A lot of our players go over there every week to show support. We’re trying to strengthen that relationship and do even more than we have and do even more than what we’re currently doing. This is an opportunity to be able to do that. We’ll try to raise some money with an event at Kegler’s on Friday night, and then there’s a 5k run in the morning. We’re going to do my walk – I’m old and broke down and stressed out, so I go on two-and-a-half-mile walks all the time. So, people are going to be able to do that. Obviously, just raise money for the Hoss Foundation to be able to do things for the hospital over there, which is awesome. And then, just like every year, our ticket price to get into the game, that’s going straight to WVU Medicine Children’s as well, and we’re excited about that weekend to wrap up spring before we end up finishing the last couple of weeks off academically. That’s where we’re at currently.
From a staffing perspective, everybody understands I added (assistant coach – running backs) Marquel Blackwell. I wish Tony Dews the best of luck in the NFL, he has always wanted to be there, so he has an opportunity to do that. I don’t get bent out of shape whatsoever if guys make moves that they’ve always dreamed of doing. It’s my job to see if we can try to hire somebody better. I really, really like Coach Blackwell, he has a great football background. He has already fit in nicely, and I like where he’s at. We’ve added some good, young coaches as well. You’ll see some familiar faces out there from Julian Miller on the defensive line, to Mike Molinari that can help out with some specialists, Tyler Orlosky on the offensive line. We even have some strength guys out there that you’re going to recognize as well, so it’s a good West Virginia presence, good former player presence. Anytime you have opportunities to get those guys on board, I think it’s important to be able to do that. I like where the staff is at, there’s a lot of continuity with some new blood as well. That’s about it, I think that’s all I’ve got.
On if anyone will miss time during the spring
Yeah, I’ll tell you who is out for spring. (Redshirt junior linebacker) David Long (Jr.) is out. He had a shoulder but is rehabbing nicely. The worst thing in the world that happened to (sophomore defensive lineman) Lamonte McDougle was having shoulder surgery the same day as David Long. They rehab together like every day, and David is an absolute machine, and Lamonte is young and big, so he struggles every day. Those two are progressing nicely, they’ll be 100 percent in the summer. You wish Lamonte could go through spring being young; we don’t care if David goes through spring or not. (Redshirt freshman safety) Exree Loe had a pec injury, he’ll be out for a couple of months. He won’t be able to participate through spring. And that’s it. Everyone else is good to go, healthy. There should be a lot of competition; you know the eight or nine guys that we added, I believe that information is out there, the early enrollees, which adds depth and adds competition. As much as we possibly can get competition in there, the better. On a side note, graduate students that are leaving: Chris Chugonuv is going to graduate and move on. We certainly appreciate everything that he’s done for the four years that he’s been here. Jaleel Fields is going to graduate and move on, I think he has three hours. He did a good job with everything that we asked him to do since he’s been here. Ricky Rogers is a grad student and will be moving on. I can’t say enough about those guys, four-year guys that graduated. That’s kind of the goal, is it not? So, those guys are going to move on, and I wish them the best of luck with whatever they decide to do, which I don’t think any of them has a real sound decision made as what they’re going to do with the rest of their lives. They’ll always be a Mountaineer, man. If you come here, and you get a good degree – all three of them have great GPAs – then they are welcome here as often as they want.
On redshirt senior Will Grier’s progress
He played a little soft toss in the bowl game out there. He took the month of January, and they started throwing with him. It was interesting in talking to the doctors and all that. You can say that he’s good, he can grip a ball, so just go ahead and start ripping it, but if you don’t use these muscles up here (shoulder) for about six months, then you need to be smart because if you get out there and start ripping it around without these muscles developing, then you can do some real long-term damage. They put him on a pitch count in January, which cranked up. By the time we got here after recruiting in February, he’s been 100 percent full go. He looks good physically, he sounds good mentally. He’s exactly what you want in a fifth-year senior. Things are just slower to him, and he’s out there coaching those other quarterbacks, (redshirt sophomore) Jack Allison and (freshman) Trey Lowe (III). He’s out there coaching those guys up, which is what you’re after.
On if freshman Trey Lowe III will continue to play baseball and football
He is. We have to remind (Randy) Mazey who pays the bills. If he doesn’t have anything going on, then he can go practice as much as he wants to, that’s fine with me. He’s done it his whole life, he’s been a multi-sport star, he’s a coach’s kid, he’s smart, he has great presence to him, he’s mature. He traveled with them to Myrtle Beach last weekend, and they played four games, I believe, and he didn’t play, so I think he’s a developmental guy for them, too. The way that works, if we have practice this weekend, then he’s probably going to be here practicing this weekend. If they are going to use him in a game, I may let him skip a practice in order for him to play in a game, and I’ve talked to Randy about this. He’s pretty important to what our future is here, so there is an expectation of him – and he has, he sits in all the meetings and has a great attitude. He’s exactly what you want in a kid that really should actually be in high school.
On lack of depth along the defensive line this spring
We’re thin. We’re not in the best position there. We feel good about (senior defensive lineman Ezekiel) Rose, he has taken on a huge leadership role. He had a great year, he just kept on getting better and better and better. And (junior defensive lineman) Reese Donahue, those guys are really solid, they give us a good base. (Sophomore defensive lineman) Darius Stills is playing nose now; he has a nose tackle body. And then, (senior defensive lineman) Brenon Thrift is a guy that’s thick that we’re putting in there as well. But we’re thin. We have (redshirt junior defensive end) Stone Wolfley and (redshirt sophomore defensive lineman) Jeffery Pooler (Jr.), who are younger guys who are at that point where they need to start contributing a little more than they have. Other than that, we’re looking for freshmen to come in and play, and we’re probably still beating down the bushes out there for some transfer guys that might be able to come in and play as well. It’s a concern right now; we’re out there looking to see if we can fix it.
On the overall goals he wants to accomplish this spring
Just competition more than anything. There’s all kinds of things that we’ll talk about over the next 15 days, and the list I have is too long to get into. Just looking back, every year is different. I sit in front of it and I say, ‘Look, guys, in 2017 we turned the ball over more than anybody in the Big 12.’ Do you think I’m probably going to say it to them? Yeah, I am. We’ll focus hard, and we’ll do different things to be able to emphasize not turning the ball over, so to speak. In years past, we’ve had fewer fumbles than anybody in the Big 12, we’ve thrown fewer interceptions than anybody in the Big 12. I don’t think it’s anything that we’re doing from a practice point of view or an emphasis point of view. You look back at what you did and talk about how you’re going to get better. With that said, 2018 is a different team than 2017. We have to understand that. We have to really just sit there and practice and identify our guys and identify the position battles and figure out who this team is and who is going to start before figuring out what kind of team this is and what kind of goals we need to set.
On what he found when went back and self-scouted the 2017 team
We improved our scoring. We finished drives better with touchdowns, I think we are about 68 percent, which is higher than it has been in the past last couple of years. We have had multiple conversations about this, we need to score a little bit more, have to finish with touchdowns better. We did that pretty good last year. That (redshirt senior quarterback) Will Grier, (senior wide receiver) David Sills (V) connection had something to do with that. On the flip side, we have been pretty good at preventing touchdowns, drives ending with touchdowns. We weren’t very good with that last year. That’s one example. There isn’t enough time in this to be able to say ‘We have to improve on this.’ Our punt coverage has been pretty good the last couple of years, it wasn’t very good last year. (Redshirt senior punter) Billy (Kinney), our personnel had something to do with that. We didn’t do a very good job, have to improve on that. Punt return was not great when you look at it. I don’t measure punt return with how many yards per return we have. That’s a stat that we keep, but to me it’s irrelevant. I thought we did a great job of fielding the thing and having some space to field it, we just didn’t get any of them out. We’ll emphasis that. What’s the margin between punt and punt return? That’s another example. I probably have another 15 to 18 more examples that I can gauge where we are at offensively and defensively and we will do that in-house and it’s going to take a bunch of time to be able to get our points across. We’ll take something today and try to get a little bit better at it. That isn’t going to change over summer and that isn’t going to change in August either.
On what he has seen from the placekickers
Yeah, they started competing yesterday. (Special Teams Graduate Assistant) Mike Molinari is going to be a great charter. That’s what his job is to chart. We are going to come up with a bunch of different ways for these guys to be able to compete against each other. (Redshirt sophomore kicker) Evan (Staley) is a guy that was really, really, really different towards the end of the year than we were during the beginning of the year. His improvement and his ceiling gets me really excited. Then you add a guy like (redshirt junior kicker) Skyler Simcox, who is a Lou Groza Finalist a couple of years ago, that creates competition. Being able to put those guys in as many practice situations as we possibly can to be able to let those guys compete will pay dividends. Need to do the same at punter. We have the same thing going on at long snapper. Over the course of time we will figure out who gives us the best chance to win and what their roles and what their jobs exactly are. We don’t know right now
On how the tight end position will change this season
It will be a big change moving forward. The couple of bodies, (redshirt senior tight end) (Trevon) Wesco is a different body than Eli (Elijah Wellman) so we will be able to do different things. (Redshirt sophomore tight end) Jovanni Haskins is a different body than what I’ve had here since I have been here. We have a couple that we recruited that are coming in as well. We are still playing with stuff so what the end result is I don’t know. It’s pretty exciting to be able to mess around with that stuff, that’s for sure.
On if he has given anyone a scholarship this season
Not yet. We will have room to add a couple. I could probably tell you who they are. I think I would probably end up being right, but I’d rather let those guys compete hard in spring and summer before we technically can put them on. We can’t put them on right now without triggering initials and all that, which you can’t do. But, it will happen probably sometime this summer.
On how redshirt sophomore Jack Allison looks
Good. Tall, he spins it around pretty good. He is still young, hadn’t played a lot. He did a good job on scout team for us all year. Gives us another option at quarterback. I will say this. I figured out if you don’t want short quarterbacks, don’t recruit short quarterbacks. Not to say I don’t. I have had some great short quarterbacks that have been excellent. But, those three, look different than what we have had.
On what he expects from the running backs
We need improvement. I don’t know if we are going to have a feature 1,000-yard guy. That’ll work itself out. The three we have there right now with (junior running back) Kennedy (McKoy), (junior running back) Martell (Pettaway) and (redshirt freshman running back) (Alec) Sink (Sinkfield), those guys look pretty good to me. It’s going to be fun to watch those guys compete. The run game probably has a little more to do with what those guys up front are doing. How they are targeting, how much mass they have and how they can move people. We will have a ton of success with it, but exactly who are the guys that are going to end up doing it, I don’t know.
On if there are any significant position changes
Well, it was written. I guess there was an article about that, that I didn’t know about. Some, I think they were mentioned. They mentioned the nose, (redshirt sophomore linebacker) (Dylan Tonkery) is going to Mike, (sophomore cornerback) Pitts is going to corner, which this is not unusual at all for spring practice. (Redshirt senior safety) Dravon (Askew-Henry) is going to Spur. Dravon has played them all, been here as long as I have. He’s going to Spur. (Redshirt sophomore) (Logan) Thimons is going to fullback, I don’t know if that’s a big deal. That’s about it. We’ll move guys around some. What the depth chart is and what it’s going to be I can assure you is two totally different things.
Opening Statement
You can see our newly-renovated, old team room. We have a little bit of soundproof on here so you can have a little bit of privacy. We blocked this off – (receivers) Coach (Tyron) Carrier actually sits like three feet on the other side right there and sometimes (associate head coach – defensive coordinator/linebackers) (Tony Gibson) sits here, and they try to out-scream themselves. We still have the weight room, you can hear that music in there, so this is still going to be a renovated area at some point, but we have made it a little bit more functional. It does make you appreciate the new one that we have. The reason we aren’t in there – I think everybody knows this – but the reason we aren’t in there is because they are redoing the training room underneath it. They were nervous about 120 200- to 300-pound people sitting in a room that might collapse and set us back for a whole year. As long as we’re making progress, we’ll deal with about anything.
There’s a rumor that we started spring yesterday, I don’t really agree with that. We start on Saturday, which you guys will be able to see the guys in an actual helmet and jersey. With the NCAA rules and regulations, you have to have some non-contact practices. We’ve been with them together after recruiting for, I believe, this is the fourth week. I think (assistant athletic director for strength and conditioning) Mike (Joseph) had them for like two weeks. We came back and had some offseason stuff for like three weeks, which, really, what we’re doing this week isn’t any different than what we did last week. We’re still lifting a lot; we’re installing things. We’ve been able to meet with them for a couple of hours per week the previous three weeks – that’s not a whole lot different than what we’re doing this week. We can go do some instructional stuff outside. It is a little bit more beneficial to be able to go out there and count it as one of the 15 days because we can use them all and stay out there for some real, real, real non-competitive stuff. That’s where we are currently at, and we’ll do the same stuff tomorrow. We aren’t out there very long, and it doesn’t even really look like football. Saturday, we’ll turn the page and start having a little bit of resistance with each other.
You guys know the schedule; that’s what we are doing it, I haven’t even really had to explain it to anybody. There was an article written yesterday, I guess, that explains everything else that we’re doing this spring, so I’m not going to go into it. If you guys have questions, then we can talk about it.
I’m excited about this group, the 2018 group. It’s probably, obviously offensively, the most veteran unit that we’ve had since I’ve been here. Defensively, I feel good about, just based on (Gibson) going into the fifth year, it seems like he’s been here for a while. He’s been here six years – he’s been here forever – but the coordinator aspect of it for the fifth year gives everybody comfort. I just like where the guys are right now, and I wanted to get started. I’m looking forward to a good spring. I like how it’s broken up, I think it will reduce the monotony of spring football that everybody deals with. You can say, ‘Well, how can you get tired of practicing football?’ Well, I can assure you these guys get tired of practicing football in the spring. Being able to have breaks with spring practice and with Easter break will break up that monotony aspect of it. We’ll finish earlier this year than we ever have, which means we’ll have more time to heal and get ready for the actual season.
The sixth and seventh of April should be a good spring weekend. You’re flipping coins on whether the weather is going to be appropriate or not. There’s nothing you can do about that, so we’ll just deal with it and roll through it. But, it’ll be a good weekend, obviously it’s a big weekend for WVU athletics and WVU Medicine Children’s, the relationship that exists there. My man (Dale Wolfley) here does a great job of cultivating this relationship as well. The whole weekend is going to be about the kids, obviously football, and then about the kids as well. I put something out on my Twitter a little bit ago just as far as the partnership that football has with Jeff Hostetler. That relationship has existed for many, many years, and we want to continue to strengthen that relationship. He does such a great job over at the hospital with his foundation, the Hoss Foundation. He built the family resource center over there, which I’ve been over there hanging out a little bit, I know (Wolfley) has been over there. A lot of our players go over there every week to show support. We’re trying to strengthen that relationship and do even more than we have and do even more than what we’re currently doing. This is an opportunity to be able to do that. We’ll try to raise some money with an event at Kegler’s on Friday night, and then there’s a 5k run in the morning. We’re going to do my walk – I’m old and broke down and stressed out, so I go on two-and-a-half-mile walks all the time. So, people are going to be able to do that. Obviously, just raise money for the Hoss Foundation to be able to do things for the hospital over there, which is awesome. And then, just like every year, our ticket price to get into the game, that’s going straight to WVU Medicine Children’s as well, and we’re excited about that weekend to wrap up spring before we end up finishing the last couple of weeks off academically. That’s where we’re at currently.
From a staffing perspective, everybody understands I added (assistant coach – running backs) Marquel Blackwell. I wish Tony Dews the best of luck in the NFL, he has always wanted to be there, so he has an opportunity to do that. I don’t get bent out of shape whatsoever if guys make moves that they’ve always dreamed of doing. It’s my job to see if we can try to hire somebody better. I really, really like Coach Blackwell, he has a great football background. He has already fit in nicely, and I like where he’s at. We’ve added some good, young coaches as well. You’ll see some familiar faces out there from Julian Miller on the defensive line, to Mike Molinari that can help out with some specialists, Tyler Orlosky on the offensive line. We even have some strength guys out there that you’re going to recognize as well, so it’s a good West Virginia presence, good former player presence. Anytime you have opportunities to get those guys on board, I think it’s important to be able to do that. I like where the staff is at, there’s a lot of continuity with some new blood as well. That’s about it, I think that’s all I’ve got.
On if anyone will miss time during the spring
Yeah, I’ll tell you who is out for spring. (Redshirt junior linebacker) David Long (Jr.) is out. He had a shoulder but is rehabbing nicely. The worst thing in the world that happened to (sophomore defensive lineman) Lamonte McDougle was having shoulder surgery the same day as David Long. They rehab together like every day, and David is an absolute machine, and Lamonte is young and big, so he struggles every day. Those two are progressing nicely, they’ll be 100 percent in the summer. You wish Lamonte could go through spring being young; we don’t care if David goes through spring or not. (Redshirt freshman safety) Exree Loe had a pec injury, he’ll be out for a couple of months. He won’t be able to participate through spring. And that’s it. Everyone else is good to go, healthy. There should be a lot of competition; you know the eight or nine guys that we added, I believe that information is out there, the early enrollees, which adds depth and adds competition. As much as we possibly can get competition in there, the better. On a side note, graduate students that are leaving: Chris Chugonuv is going to graduate and move on. We certainly appreciate everything that he’s done for the four years that he’s been here. Jaleel Fields is going to graduate and move on, I think he has three hours. He did a good job with everything that we asked him to do since he’s been here. Ricky Rogers is a grad student and will be moving on. I can’t say enough about those guys, four-year guys that graduated. That’s kind of the goal, is it not? So, those guys are going to move on, and I wish them the best of luck with whatever they decide to do, which I don’t think any of them has a real sound decision made as what they’re going to do with the rest of their lives. They’ll always be a Mountaineer, man. If you come here, and you get a good degree – all three of them have great GPAs – then they are welcome here as often as they want.
On redshirt senior Will Grier’s progress
He played a little soft toss in the bowl game out there. He took the month of January, and they started throwing with him. It was interesting in talking to the doctors and all that. You can say that he’s good, he can grip a ball, so just go ahead and start ripping it, but if you don’t use these muscles up here (shoulder) for about six months, then you need to be smart because if you get out there and start ripping it around without these muscles developing, then you can do some real long-term damage. They put him on a pitch count in January, which cranked up. By the time we got here after recruiting in February, he’s been 100 percent full go. He looks good physically, he sounds good mentally. He’s exactly what you want in a fifth-year senior. Things are just slower to him, and he’s out there coaching those other quarterbacks, (redshirt sophomore) Jack Allison and (freshman) Trey Lowe (III). He’s out there coaching those guys up, which is what you’re after.
On if freshman Trey Lowe III will continue to play baseball and football
He is. We have to remind (Randy) Mazey who pays the bills. If he doesn’t have anything going on, then he can go practice as much as he wants to, that’s fine with me. He’s done it his whole life, he’s been a multi-sport star, he’s a coach’s kid, he’s smart, he has great presence to him, he’s mature. He traveled with them to Myrtle Beach last weekend, and they played four games, I believe, and he didn’t play, so I think he’s a developmental guy for them, too. The way that works, if we have practice this weekend, then he’s probably going to be here practicing this weekend. If they are going to use him in a game, I may let him skip a practice in order for him to play in a game, and I’ve talked to Randy about this. He’s pretty important to what our future is here, so there is an expectation of him – and he has, he sits in all the meetings and has a great attitude. He’s exactly what you want in a kid that really should actually be in high school.
On lack of depth along the defensive line this spring
We’re thin. We’re not in the best position there. We feel good about (senior defensive lineman Ezekiel) Rose, he has taken on a huge leadership role. He had a great year, he just kept on getting better and better and better. And (junior defensive lineman) Reese Donahue, those guys are really solid, they give us a good base. (Sophomore defensive lineman) Darius Stills is playing nose now; he has a nose tackle body. And then, (senior defensive lineman) Brenon Thrift is a guy that’s thick that we’re putting in there as well. But we’re thin. We have (redshirt junior defensive end) Stone Wolfley and (redshirt sophomore defensive lineman) Jeffery Pooler (Jr.), who are younger guys who are at that point where they need to start contributing a little more than they have. Other than that, we’re looking for freshmen to come in and play, and we’re probably still beating down the bushes out there for some transfer guys that might be able to come in and play as well. It’s a concern right now; we’re out there looking to see if we can fix it.
On the overall goals he wants to accomplish this spring
Just competition more than anything. There’s all kinds of things that we’ll talk about over the next 15 days, and the list I have is too long to get into. Just looking back, every year is different. I sit in front of it and I say, ‘Look, guys, in 2017 we turned the ball over more than anybody in the Big 12.’ Do you think I’m probably going to say it to them? Yeah, I am. We’ll focus hard, and we’ll do different things to be able to emphasize not turning the ball over, so to speak. In years past, we’ve had fewer fumbles than anybody in the Big 12, we’ve thrown fewer interceptions than anybody in the Big 12. I don’t think it’s anything that we’re doing from a practice point of view or an emphasis point of view. You look back at what you did and talk about how you’re going to get better. With that said, 2018 is a different team than 2017. We have to understand that. We have to really just sit there and practice and identify our guys and identify the position battles and figure out who this team is and who is going to start before figuring out what kind of team this is and what kind of goals we need to set.
On what he found when went back and self-scouted the 2017 team
We improved our scoring. We finished drives better with touchdowns, I think we are about 68 percent, which is higher than it has been in the past last couple of years. We have had multiple conversations about this, we need to score a little bit more, have to finish with touchdowns better. We did that pretty good last year. That (redshirt senior quarterback) Will Grier, (senior wide receiver) David Sills (V) connection had something to do with that. On the flip side, we have been pretty good at preventing touchdowns, drives ending with touchdowns. We weren’t very good with that last year. That’s one example. There isn’t enough time in this to be able to say ‘We have to improve on this.’ Our punt coverage has been pretty good the last couple of years, it wasn’t very good last year. (Redshirt senior punter) Billy (Kinney), our personnel had something to do with that. We didn’t do a very good job, have to improve on that. Punt return was not great when you look at it. I don’t measure punt return with how many yards per return we have. That’s a stat that we keep, but to me it’s irrelevant. I thought we did a great job of fielding the thing and having some space to field it, we just didn’t get any of them out. We’ll emphasis that. What’s the margin between punt and punt return? That’s another example. I probably have another 15 to 18 more examples that I can gauge where we are at offensively and defensively and we will do that in-house and it’s going to take a bunch of time to be able to get our points across. We’ll take something today and try to get a little bit better at it. That isn’t going to change over summer and that isn’t going to change in August either.
On what he has seen from the placekickers
Yeah, they started competing yesterday. (Special Teams Graduate Assistant) Mike Molinari is going to be a great charter. That’s what his job is to chart. We are going to come up with a bunch of different ways for these guys to be able to compete against each other. (Redshirt sophomore kicker) Evan (Staley) is a guy that was really, really, really different towards the end of the year than we were during the beginning of the year. His improvement and his ceiling gets me really excited. Then you add a guy like (redshirt junior kicker) Skyler Simcox, who is a Lou Groza Finalist a couple of years ago, that creates competition. Being able to put those guys in as many practice situations as we possibly can to be able to let those guys compete will pay dividends. Need to do the same at punter. We have the same thing going on at long snapper. Over the course of time we will figure out who gives us the best chance to win and what their roles and what their jobs exactly are. We don’t know right now
On how the tight end position will change this season
It will be a big change moving forward. The couple of bodies, (redshirt senior tight end) (Trevon) Wesco is a different body than Eli (Elijah Wellman) so we will be able to do different things. (Redshirt sophomore tight end) Jovanni Haskins is a different body than what I’ve had here since I have been here. We have a couple that we recruited that are coming in as well. We are still playing with stuff so what the end result is I don’t know. It’s pretty exciting to be able to mess around with that stuff, that’s for sure.
On if he has given anyone a scholarship this season
Not yet. We will have room to add a couple. I could probably tell you who they are. I think I would probably end up being right, but I’d rather let those guys compete hard in spring and summer before we technically can put them on. We can’t put them on right now without triggering initials and all that, which you can’t do. But, it will happen probably sometime this summer.
On how redshirt sophomore Jack Allison looks
Good. Tall, he spins it around pretty good. He is still young, hadn’t played a lot. He did a good job on scout team for us all year. Gives us another option at quarterback. I will say this. I figured out if you don’t want short quarterbacks, don’t recruit short quarterbacks. Not to say I don’t. I have had some great short quarterbacks that have been excellent. But, those three, look different than what we have had.
On what he expects from the running backs
We need improvement. I don’t know if we are going to have a feature 1,000-yard guy. That’ll work itself out. The three we have there right now with (junior running back) Kennedy (McKoy), (junior running back) Martell (Pettaway) and (redshirt freshman running back) (Alec) Sink (Sinkfield), those guys look pretty good to me. It’s going to be fun to watch those guys compete. The run game probably has a little more to do with what those guys up front are doing. How they are targeting, how much mass they have and how they can move people. We will have a ton of success with it, but exactly who are the guys that are going to end up doing it, I don’t know.
On if there are any significant position changes
Well, it was written. I guess there was an article about that, that I didn’t know about. Some, I think they were mentioned. They mentioned the nose, (redshirt sophomore linebacker) (Dylan Tonkery) is going to Mike, (sophomore cornerback) Pitts is going to corner, which this is not unusual at all for spring practice. (Redshirt senior safety) Dravon (Askew-Henry) is going to Spur. Dravon has played them all, been here as long as I have. He’s going to Spur. (Redshirt sophomore) (Logan) Thimons is going to fullback, I don’t know if that’s a big deal. That’s about it. We’ll move guys around some. What the depth chart is and what it’s going to be I can assure you is two totally different things.
