West Virginia University
Coach Dana Holgorsen Press Conference
December 19, 2018
LINK: https://wvusports.co/2S64hlu
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (December 19, 2018) – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Wednesday, Dec. 19, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.
Opening Statement
I heard today was Signing Day, so I’m looking at this list to see who signed with the Mountaineers. It looks like we got some good recruits. It’s a lot less stressful is my point with saying that; it’s a lot less stressful than it’s been. I think (director of player personnel) Ryan Dorchester and the recruiting world did a good job with these guys. We had two already here, obviously, because they count as a part of this signing class. When you fill your allotted 25, the only way you can go beyond that is to bring guys in in August, which is what we did with (sophomore linebacker) VanDarius (Cowan) and (redshirt sophomore wide receiver) Isaiah (Esdale). So, we had two, and we got 16 today, so that’s a good day. We’re sitting here at 18, so we have seven more that we’ll go identify between now and sometime in the summer. It’s nice to be able to reassess after the early signing period as far as what we need moving forward. We’ll be back out on the road in January to continue to do research and to continue to recruit guys and bring in about seven more here moving forward. So, I like where we’re at with that.
Really, they are all good players, and we are excited about having them all and all that. I don’t have time – I could go through each and every one of them, but I can’t talk about anything else, because time would be up. But you have your list there, and you all know who they are anyway. I think it’s a great group of guys. We have four coming in at midterm, got a lot of good, quality high-school guys from all over. I want to give (assistant coach – cornerbacks) Coach (Doug) Belk a shout out just for doing a great job in Georgia. That’s been a high priority of ours; we’ve really focused on Georgia these last few years. I spent all three weeks pretty much down in Georgia in December, and it’s outstanding football down there. We’re going to continue to work hard at getting guys from that area. He brought in four high-school guys from there, and then Dreshun (Miller), the junior-college corner was a big get for us, he’ll be here in January. He’s originally from Georgia, played with the (Joe and Michael) Brown brothers and Isaiah Esdale out in Arizona, so we had some connections out there that were good.
I’m excited about that class. Any questions recruiting-wise?
On recruiting based on need at certain positions
The biggest needs, I don’t know. Every position is always a need. We want to continue to bring guys in. I have my master sheet in the back that I look at as far as what we still have on the board, which can change based on how good players are. I can honestly say we’re probably not looking for a running back right now, because we have a really good one in Tony Mathis, and we have four coming back. But things happen all the time, as we all know, and if there’s just a great, great, great one, then we may reevaluate that. That was just an example. But we’re always looking for the best players we can, and we’re always looking to create as much competition as we possibly can. Obviously, quarterback is still a need at this point. We haven’t signed one. I think you all can figure out what we’ve been successful with, with quarterbacks, and what we will continue to try to look for in quarterbacks. We only have two on scholarship right now, we just got done coaching them hard out there a few minutes ago. We will, obviously, try to bring somebody in in the summer. Moving forward, we’re still looking at who we can get. So, we know what our needs are, and we’re going to continue to look at that and evaluate that. One benefit to having upwards of seven guys is you never know what’s going to happen the next semester. When we get here in January, there may be some guys that we were counting on that may not be a part of the team. Who knows how things happen?
I do want to talk about academics for a minute. Grades came out today, and I couldn’t be more excited about who is running our academics in the back. (assistant athletic director/student-athlete development) Brittney O’Dell is an absolute superstar, she has been with us now for four years. She’s doing as good of a job as I’ve ever seen, just the relationships she has with our players, our staff, she’s in every one of our staff meetings, she knows everything that’s going on around here, great relationship with the players, great relationship with the faculty across campus. She is an absolute superstar. I couldn’t be happier with her performance, and I can’t thank her enough.
Once again, this is the third year in a row, all players are eligible for the bowl. There are no six-hour concerns, no nine-hour concerns. Overall, our team GPA this semester was 2.98, that’s the highest ever. That’s better than what I did at times in college. Think about that, 120 guys, the overall GPA is 2.98. We have zero F’s. Zero F’s for every one of our players, zero F’s. Nobody had below a 2.0. It’s just unbelievable. Sixty-six of our players had a 3.0 or higher. That’s more than half the team, 3.0 or higher. It’s just unreal, and I think our coaches do a great job of keeping our players accountable academically, having her in the building in the back and just interacting with her on a daily basis is outstanding. I commend our academic department for helping us as a football program to be able to achieve the success that we’re having as student-athletes.
We graduated another seven guys – 10 played this year with their degree, and we just added seven more. So, 17 people in the bowl game will be graduated as seniors, and that’s not even counting some of the juniors that have already graduated. That’s about as good as it gets. I haven’t seen a situation like this that’s that good. So, we’re thrilled to death about that.
On which recruits are planning to enroll early
We have four total. Taijh Alston, a (defensive) lineman, he’s originally from North Carolina, Kerry Martin, down from Charleston, Dreshun (Miller) and who’d I miss? There’s one more. I don’t know, that’s a good question. There should be one more.
On the importance of being a December graduate when at a junior college
It helps. It’s to a point where whether it’s junior college or high-school guys, like Kerry (Martin), he’s coming in as a high-school guy, that gets them so far ahead. You try to recruit junior-college guys, because that’s what your need is, but we’ve brought a lot of junior-college guys in here that are three-for-three that have a sit year and still have two years to play. Whether it’s high school, whether it’s junior college, it doesn’t matter. It’s about if you have the ability to be able to come in early, that just gets you so much work in the spring semester. Pretty much all of them will be here in June, but that extra six months or whatever is valuable.
On what makes Georgia a good state to zero in on for recruiting
Well, (assistant coach – cornerbacks) Doug (Belk) has a good relationship with a lot of people down there. I just think proximity is good. The Atlanta to Pittsburgh connection is really easy, there’s about eight flights a day. There’s a large part of Atlanta that is full of kids that didn’t grow up in Georgia, they have a ton of move-ins. That’s just a fast-growing city. When you’re that close to close to a hub that gets you to Pittsburgh seven times a day, it’s easy to convince guys to jump on airplanes. We’ve had success with guys there in the past, obviously, with (Adam) Pacman (Jones) and Bruce (Irvin). It’s just really good football. I think it’s as well-coached of a football state as I’ve seen. They have great talent, they have great population, and they play really good football. I was down there a week ago Tuesday and Wednesday for their state-championship games that they held in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They had them on Tuesday and Wednesday because their soccer team played on the previous Saturday and won the Major League Soccer championship. So, they had to move them to a Tuesday and Wednesday. They had four games on Tuesday and four games on Wednesday, and the entire city was sold out of hotel rooms because, whether it’s 1A all the way up to 7A, it’s unreal how many people go to those games. It’s just incredible football and really well-coached and a lot of talent. So, it makes sense for us. I wish I would have stumbled on it and focused on it earlier, but it’s been good for us.
On the importance of having continuity on the coaching staff when it comes to recruiting
Yeah, I think so. (director of player personnel) (Ryan) Dorchester has been here a long time, too, and we have a good recruiting plan, and we’ve had guys in areas. We have a recruiting strategy, and we know what we’re focused on, and we know if it’s not a good fit, don’t sit there and play games, let’s just move on. Whatever we sign at this point today, we know how to fill it out.
OK, a couple things on the bowl. We’re excited about going to Orlando. We know these guys from a program perspective. First of all, just being able to go to Orlando is outstanding, we love it down there. A lot of our guys were down there a couple of years ago, so we understand that it’s one of the best bowl destinations that you can ask for. The Camping World people do a really great job with hospitality and facilities, the stadium is awesome, and the hotels are good with the resorts and the theme parks. It doesn’t get any better than this. And then you play Syracuse, which we’ve played 60 times or something like that.
We have great history with Syracuse, we all get that. We all understand that. It’s been a heated rivalry game forever, and we’re not too far removed from playing against them my first two years. They won both, I’m well-aware of that. Coach (Doug) Marrone, when he was there, did a really outstanding job. Coach (Dino) Babers and I go way back with the Texas connections that we have. He spent time at Baylor, which we can figure out that he spent time at Baylor based on what they do on offense. I do have a lot of respect for him, and his offensive guys and defensive guys, a lot of them were at Bowling Green together for three years and won a lot of games. We ended up studying their games based on Maryland when they beat Maryland two years in a row or whatever it was. So, we’re familiar with their style of play with what they do. Their defensive coaches, as well, they are full of a lot of coaches that have worked their way up through the coaching ranks, small schools, had success, got jobs, and they’re doing a heck of a job at Syracuse.
They have a lot of excitement surrounding their program. I know (Babers) just signed an extension. He’s happy there; the whole staff seems to be happy with the continuity that they have. The excitement shows when you watch them play. They’re good. That quarterback is really a good player. (Eric) Dungey is really good, and he’s been running it for three years now. He does a great job. They run their offense, they play fast, they snap the ball more than anybody but one team – I don’t know who the first team is, but they’re second. So, it’s almost 83 snaps per game. It’ll look familiar, based on who we’ve played.
And then defensively, they play their tail off. They give up some plays, and it looks like they give up yards, but they play really good defense. They’re sound with what they do, their schemes are incredibly sound, they fly around, they play hard, they’re aggressive, they play tight, man coverage, they blitz you, they are really good in key situations, so they have my attention as far as what they do, not only defensively, obviously, but offensively, and special teams, as well. They have the Lou Groza guy, if you look at it, they have good return guys. No. 10 (Sean Riley) is a quick, little dude that takes chances on both punt returns and kick returns. And they are solid in the punt and kickoff game, as well.
So, it’s a solid team, 9-3, top 20, two of those three losses are to CFP teams. It’s going to be a challenge. We’ve had about four good practices out there, actually three against Syracuse. We’ll practice again tomorrow against them, we’ll practice Friday morning against them, then, as I usually do, I’ll let them go home for a few days, and we’ll reconvene in Orlando on Monday, ready to play. I think our guys will be ready to play. After the disappointing end to the season, it’s still a good football team. We’ve done a great job of next guy up needs to get in there and play, and I don’t feel that this will be any different. I think we’ll be ready to go.
On the decision-making that goes into scheduling bowl practices
You don’t have much if you recruit the right way. We’re on the road recruiting for three weeks, and you can’t practice them for finals. Back here on the weekends, you have recruiting weekends, so we got together about once prior to this week. And then you practice all week this week. If you practice them too hard, then they don’t want to play. So, you just have to have a good balance of getting your work done and getting them prepared and keeping them in shape. We have a really good strength and conditioning program in the basement that those guys were in their world for about three weeks. We’ve healed up; we were banged up after Oklahoma. I think we had about five linemen out, you guys saw that. But we’re back to being healthy, we’ve practiced well this week, we’ll prepare and get down there. You can’t wear them out once you’re down there. If you do, it’s bad news. We’ll be ready to go.
On if he has decided on calling plays at the bowl game and in 2019
I have for this game. I’ll reevaluate everything once the year is over. I’m getting back in the swing of things; my fingers are all cramped up because I’m signaling plays again. I’ve been cooped up, so I’m having a good time with it. I think (redshirt sophomore quarterback) Jack (Allison) and (freshman quarterback) Trey (Lowe III) both have done a great job. They are both repping. I’m planning on probably playing them both. We’ve been coaching them pretty hard. (assistant coach – running backs) (Marquel) Blackwell was a pretty good quarterback, I don’t know if you guys know that, so he’s been spending some time with them out there, and I’m obviously used to what we’re doing and used to calling it and all that. I’m comfortable with where we’re at as an offense, and we still have a lot of good players. We’re missing a few – (senior wide receiver) Gary (Jennings Jr.) isn’t playing, I’m sure you guys know. He battled a high ankle for six weeks towards the end of the season. I don’t know how he did what he did against Oklahoma, because he hasn’t practiced in six weeks. He has a lot ahead of him, he’s trying to play in the East-West Game, trying to get to the combine and play, so he made a decision that he needs to get healthy, and I respect that. We have some good, young receivers that have been playing really well. (freshman wide receiver) Bryce (Wheaton) and (freshman wide receiver) Sam (James) both have practiced really hard, and they’re playing really hard, so it gives them an opportunity for them to play. I’m pretty jacked up about coaching those guys and coaching Jack and coaching Trey and put them in situations to see how they handle it. That’s where we’re at currently with our offense. Like I do everything else, I will reevaluate what’s going on here as soon as the game is over. I’ll decompress and figure it out.
On if he wants to call plays again
I want to win, so whatever we have to do to win. I’ve got a fairly decent history of calling plays that work, I’ve got a history of calling plays that don’t work. We’ll see how it goes. I’m enjoying it, I like doing it. Deep down inside, I can do as much of the CEO crap as I want to; I like football, and I like calling plays, and I like coaching offense. It’s what our teams needs me to do right now, and that’s what I’ll do.
On if he’s planning against Syracuse or the quarterback’s abilities
I know what our quarterbacks can do. We didn’t just add them to our team yesterday. I know what those guys can do. Guys get into a backup quarterback mode, and they just plateau for a while. And then once they’re no longer a backup quarterback, those guys elevate pretty quickly. I couldn’t be happier with what (redshirt sophomore) Jack (Allison) is doing out there, he’s spinning that thing. And this new redshirt rule, it’s awesome. We’d be in some deep crap if I didn’t have that rule right now. (Freshman) Trey (Lowe III) gets to play, and he’s going to play, and I can’t wait to see what he does. (Freshman wide receiver) Sam (James) is going to play and redshirt, (freshman wide receiver) Bryce (Wheaton) is going to play and redshirt, (junior offensive lineman) Mike Brown, right now, is starting at right guard, he’s going to play and redshirt, (freshman tight end) T.J. Banks is going to play and redshirt, (freshman offensive lineman) Briason Mays is our backup center right, he’s probably going to play, (freshman safety) Kwantel Raines is going to play. I mean, this is awesome. You can sit there and be upset with (redshirt senior quarterback) Will Grier and (redshirt senior offensive lineman) Yodny (Cajuste) and (senior wide receiver) Gary (Jennings Jr.) because they aren’t going to play, but those are pretty good reasons why they wouldn’t. I’m good, because we have a whole bunch of other people on our team that get an opportunity to go play a football game. We’re practicing our butt off, and we’re going to get those guys out there and see what happens in a live setting. That’s awesome to me. And we’re not killing a year. And then they come back in here in January after that kind of experience and an opportunity to be able to go play, they are going to be different people in January because of it.
On if he’s mapped out how he plans to use the quarterbacks
Yeah, I’ve got it all figured out, and I’m going to tell you, right? They’re going to play, I don’t know what else to tell you. Those guys are going to play, and I’m happy with both of them and they’re going to play. I’m going to keep practicing them and come up with a good plan and go execute it.
On how the two quarterbacks differ from each other
I can’t tell you that, either. Let your imagination wander. More importantly, let’s let Syracuse’s imagination wander.
Coach Dana Holgorsen Press Conference
December 19, 2018
LINK: https://wvusports.co/2S64hlu
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (December 19, 2018) – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Wednesday, Dec. 19, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.
Opening Statement
I heard today was Signing Day, so I’m looking at this list to see who signed with the Mountaineers. It looks like we got some good recruits. It’s a lot less stressful is my point with saying that; it’s a lot less stressful than it’s been. I think (director of player personnel) Ryan Dorchester and the recruiting world did a good job with these guys. We had two already here, obviously, because they count as a part of this signing class. When you fill your allotted 25, the only way you can go beyond that is to bring guys in in August, which is what we did with (sophomore linebacker) VanDarius (Cowan) and (redshirt sophomore wide receiver) Isaiah (Esdale). So, we had two, and we got 16 today, so that’s a good day. We’re sitting here at 18, so we have seven more that we’ll go identify between now and sometime in the summer. It’s nice to be able to reassess after the early signing period as far as what we need moving forward. We’ll be back out on the road in January to continue to do research and to continue to recruit guys and bring in about seven more here moving forward. So, I like where we’re at with that.
Really, they are all good players, and we are excited about having them all and all that. I don’t have time – I could go through each and every one of them, but I can’t talk about anything else, because time would be up. But you have your list there, and you all know who they are anyway. I think it’s a great group of guys. We have four coming in at midterm, got a lot of good, quality high-school guys from all over. I want to give (assistant coach – cornerbacks) Coach (Doug) Belk a shout out just for doing a great job in Georgia. That’s been a high priority of ours; we’ve really focused on Georgia these last few years. I spent all three weeks pretty much down in Georgia in December, and it’s outstanding football down there. We’re going to continue to work hard at getting guys from that area. He brought in four high-school guys from there, and then Dreshun (Miller), the junior-college corner was a big get for us, he’ll be here in January. He’s originally from Georgia, played with the (Joe and Michael) Brown brothers and Isaiah Esdale out in Arizona, so we had some connections out there that were good.
I’m excited about that class. Any questions recruiting-wise?
On recruiting based on need at certain positions
The biggest needs, I don’t know. Every position is always a need. We want to continue to bring guys in. I have my master sheet in the back that I look at as far as what we still have on the board, which can change based on how good players are. I can honestly say we’re probably not looking for a running back right now, because we have a really good one in Tony Mathis, and we have four coming back. But things happen all the time, as we all know, and if there’s just a great, great, great one, then we may reevaluate that. That was just an example. But we’re always looking for the best players we can, and we’re always looking to create as much competition as we possibly can. Obviously, quarterback is still a need at this point. We haven’t signed one. I think you all can figure out what we’ve been successful with, with quarterbacks, and what we will continue to try to look for in quarterbacks. We only have two on scholarship right now, we just got done coaching them hard out there a few minutes ago. We will, obviously, try to bring somebody in in the summer. Moving forward, we’re still looking at who we can get. So, we know what our needs are, and we’re going to continue to look at that and evaluate that. One benefit to having upwards of seven guys is you never know what’s going to happen the next semester. When we get here in January, there may be some guys that we were counting on that may not be a part of the team. Who knows how things happen?
I do want to talk about academics for a minute. Grades came out today, and I couldn’t be more excited about who is running our academics in the back. (assistant athletic director/student-athlete development) Brittney O’Dell is an absolute superstar, she has been with us now for four years. She’s doing as good of a job as I’ve ever seen, just the relationships she has with our players, our staff, she’s in every one of our staff meetings, she knows everything that’s going on around here, great relationship with the players, great relationship with the faculty across campus. She is an absolute superstar. I couldn’t be happier with her performance, and I can’t thank her enough.
Once again, this is the third year in a row, all players are eligible for the bowl. There are no six-hour concerns, no nine-hour concerns. Overall, our team GPA this semester was 2.98, that’s the highest ever. That’s better than what I did at times in college. Think about that, 120 guys, the overall GPA is 2.98. We have zero F’s. Zero F’s for every one of our players, zero F’s. Nobody had below a 2.0. It’s just unbelievable. Sixty-six of our players had a 3.0 or higher. That’s more than half the team, 3.0 or higher. It’s just unreal, and I think our coaches do a great job of keeping our players accountable academically, having her in the building in the back and just interacting with her on a daily basis is outstanding. I commend our academic department for helping us as a football program to be able to achieve the success that we’re having as student-athletes.
We graduated another seven guys – 10 played this year with their degree, and we just added seven more. So, 17 people in the bowl game will be graduated as seniors, and that’s not even counting some of the juniors that have already graduated. That’s about as good as it gets. I haven’t seen a situation like this that’s that good. So, we’re thrilled to death about that.
On which recruits are planning to enroll early
We have four total. Taijh Alston, a (defensive) lineman, he’s originally from North Carolina, Kerry Martin, down from Charleston, Dreshun (Miller) and who’d I miss? There’s one more. I don’t know, that’s a good question. There should be one more.
On the importance of being a December graduate when at a junior college
It helps. It’s to a point where whether it’s junior college or high-school guys, like Kerry (Martin), he’s coming in as a high-school guy, that gets them so far ahead. You try to recruit junior-college guys, because that’s what your need is, but we’ve brought a lot of junior-college guys in here that are three-for-three that have a sit year and still have two years to play. Whether it’s high school, whether it’s junior college, it doesn’t matter. It’s about if you have the ability to be able to come in early, that just gets you so much work in the spring semester. Pretty much all of them will be here in June, but that extra six months or whatever is valuable.
On what makes Georgia a good state to zero in on for recruiting
Well, (assistant coach – cornerbacks) Doug (Belk) has a good relationship with a lot of people down there. I just think proximity is good. The Atlanta to Pittsburgh connection is really easy, there’s about eight flights a day. There’s a large part of Atlanta that is full of kids that didn’t grow up in Georgia, they have a ton of move-ins. That’s just a fast-growing city. When you’re that close to close to a hub that gets you to Pittsburgh seven times a day, it’s easy to convince guys to jump on airplanes. We’ve had success with guys there in the past, obviously, with (Adam) Pacman (Jones) and Bruce (Irvin). It’s just really good football. I think it’s as well-coached of a football state as I’ve seen. They have great talent, they have great population, and they play really good football. I was down there a week ago Tuesday and Wednesday for their state-championship games that they held in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They had them on Tuesday and Wednesday because their soccer team played on the previous Saturday and won the Major League Soccer championship. So, they had to move them to a Tuesday and Wednesday. They had four games on Tuesday and four games on Wednesday, and the entire city was sold out of hotel rooms because, whether it’s 1A all the way up to 7A, it’s unreal how many people go to those games. It’s just incredible football and really well-coached and a lot of talent. So, it makes sense for us. I wish I would have stumbled on it and focused on it earlier, but it’s been good for us.
On the importance of having continuity on the coaching staff when it comes to recruiting
Yeah, I think so. (director of player personnel) (Ryan) Dorchester has been here a long time, too, and we have a good recruiting plan, and we’ve had guys in areas. We have a recruiting strategy, and we know what we’re focused on, and we know if it’s not a good fit, don’t sit there and play games, let’s just move on. Whatever we sign at this point today, we know how to fill it out.
OK, a couple things on the bowl. We’re excited about going to Orlando. We know these guys from a program perspective. First of all, just being able to go to Orlando is outstanding, we love it down there. A lot of our guys were down there a couple of years ago, so we understand that it’s one of the best bowl destinations that you can ask for. The Camping World people do a really great job with hospitality and facilities, the stadium is awesome, and the hotels are good with the resorts and the theme parks. It doesn’t get any better than this. And then you play Syracuse, which we’ve played 60 times or something like that.
We have great history with Syracuse, we all get that. We all understand that. It’s been a heated rivalry game forever, and we’re not too far removed from playing against them my first two years. They won both, I’m well-aware of that. Coach (Doug) Marrone, when he was there, did a really outstanding job. Coach (Dino) Babers and I go way back with the Texas connections that we have. He spent time at Baylor, which we can figure out that he spent time at Baylor based on what they do on offense. I do have a lot of respect for him, and his offensive guys and defensive guys, a lot of them were at Bowling Green together for three years and won a lot of games. We ended up studying their games based on Maryland when they beat Maryland two years in a row or whatever it was. So, we’re familiar with their style of play with what they do. Their defensive coaches, as well, they are full of a lot of coaches that have worked their way up through the coaching ranks, small schools, had success, got jobs, and they’re doing a heck of a job at Syracuse.
They have a lot of excitement surrounding their program. I know (Babers) just signed an extension. He’s happy there; the whole staff seems to be happy with the continuity that they have. The excitement shows when you watch them play. They’re good. That quarterback is really a good player. (Eric) Dungey is really good, and he’s been running it for three years now. He does a great job. They run their offense, they play fast, they snap the ball more than anybody but one team – I don’t know who the first team is, but they’re second. So, it’s almost 83 snaps per game. It’ll look familiar, based on who we’ve played.
And then defensively, they play their tail off. They give up some plays, and it looks like they give up yards, but they play really good defense. They’re sound with what they do, their schemes are incredibly sound, they fly around, they play hard, they’re aggressive, they play tight, man coverage, they blitz you, they are really good in key situations, so they have my attention as far as what they do, not only defensively, obviously, but offensively, and special teams, as well. They have the Lou Groza guy, if you look at it, they have good return guys. No. 10 (Sean Riley) is a quick, little dude that takes chances on both punt returns and kick returns. And they are solid in the punt and kickoff game, as well.
So, it’s a solid team, 9-3, top 20, two of those three losses are to CFP teams. It’s going to be a challenge. We’ve had about four good practices out there, actually three against Syracuse. We’ll practice again tomorrow against them, we’ll practice Friday morning against them, then, as I usually do, I’ll let them go home for a few days, and we’ll reconvene in Orlando on Monday, ready to play. I think our guys will be ready to play. After the disappointing end to the season, it’s still a good football team. We’ve done a great job of next guy up needs to get in there and play, and I don’t feel that this will be any different. I think we’ll be ready to go.
On the decision-making that goes into scheduling bowl practices
You don’t have much if you recruit the right way. We’re on the road recruiting for three weeks, and you can’t practice them for finals. Back here on the weekends, you have recruiting weekends, so we got together about once prior to this week. And then you practice all week this week. If you practice them too hard, then they don’t want to play. So, you just have to have a good balance of getting your work done and getting them prepared and keeping them in shape. We have a really good strength and conditioning program in the basement that those guys were in their world for about three weeks. We’ve healed up; we were banged up after Oklahoma. I think we had about five linemen out, you guys saw that. But we’re back to being healthy, we’ve practiced well this week, we’ll prepare and get down there. You can’t wear them out once you’re down there. If you do, it’s bad news. We’ll be ready to go.
On if he has decided on calling plays at the bowl game and in 2019
I have for this game. I’ll reevaluate everything once the year is over. I’m getting back in the swing of things; my fingers are all cramped up because I’m signaling plays again. I’ve been cooped up, so I’m having a good time with it. I think (redshirt sophomore quarterback) Jack (Allison) and (freshman quarterback) Trey (Lowe III) both have done a great job. They are both repping. I’m planning on probably playing them both. We’ve been coaching them pretty hard. (assistant coach – running backs) (Marquel) Blackwell was a pretty good quarterback, I don’t know if you guys know that, so he’s been spending some time with them out there, and I’m obviously used to what we’re doing and used to calling it and all that. I’m comfortable with where we’re at as an offense, and we still have a lot of good players. We’re missing a few – (senior wide receiver) Gary (Jennings Jr.) isn’t playing, I’m sure you guys know. He battled a high ankle for six weeks towards the end of the season. I don’t know how he did what he did against Oklahoma, because he hasn’t practiced in six weeks. He has a lot ahead of him, he’s trying to play in the East-West Game, trying to get to the combine and play, so he made a decision that he needs to get healthy, and I respect that. We have some good, young receivers that have been playing really well. (freshman wide receiver) Bryce (Wheaton) and (freshman wide receiver) Sam (James) both have practiced really hard, and they’re playing really hard, so it gives them an opportunity for them to play. I’m pretty jacked up about coaching those guys and coaching Jack and coaching Trey and put them in situations to see how they handle it. That’s where we’re at currently with our offense. Like I do everything else, I will reevaluate what’s going on here as soon as the game is over. I’ll decompress and figure it out.
On if he wants to call plays again
I want to win, so whatever we have to do to win. I’ve got a fairly decent history of calling plays that work, I’ve got a history of calling plays that don’t work. We’ll see how it goes. I’m enjoying it, I like doing it. Deep down inside, I can do as much of the CEO crap as I want to; I like football, and I like calling plays, and I like coaching offense. It’s what our teams needs me to do right now, and that’s what I’ll do.
On if he’s planning against Syracuse or the quarterback’s abilities
I know what our quarterbacks can do. We didn’t just add them to our team yesterday. I know what those guys can do. Guys get into a backup quarterback mode, and they just plateau for a while. And then once they’re no longer a backup quarterback, those guys elevate pretty quickly. I couldn’t be happier with what (redshirt sophomore) Jack (Allison) is doing out there, he’s spinning that thing. And this new redshirt rule, it’s awesome. We’d be in some deep crap if I didn’t have that rule right now. (Freshman) Trey (Lowe III) gets to play, and he’s going to play, and I can’t wait to see what he does. (Freshman wide receiver) Sam (James) is going to play and redshirt, (freshman wide receiver) Bryce (Wheaton) is going to play and redshirt, (junior offensive lineman) Mike Brown, right now, is starting at right guard, he’s going to play and redshirt, (freshman tight end) T.J. Banks is going to play and redshirt, (freshman offensive lineman) Briason Mays is our backup center right, he’s probably going to play, (freshman safety) Kwantel Raines is going to play. I mean, this is awesome. You can sit there and be upset with (redshirt senior quarterback) Will Grier and (redshirt senior offensive lineman) Yodny (Cajuste) and (senior wide receiver) Gary (Jennings Jr.) because they aren’t going to play, but those are pretty good reasons why they wouldn’t. I’m good, because we have a whole bunch of other people on our team that get an opportunity to go play a football game. We’re practicing our butt off, and we’re going to get those guys out there and see what happens in a live setting. That’s awesome to me. And we’re not killing a year. And then they come back in here in January after that kind of experience and an opportunity to be able to go play, they are going to be different people in January because of it.
On if he’s mapped out how he plans to use the quarterbacks
Yeah, I’ve got it all figured out, and I’m going to tell you, right? They’re going to play, I don’t know what else to tell you. Those guys are going to play, and I’m happy with both of them and they’re going to play. I’m going to keep practicing them and come up with a good plan and go execute it.
On how the two quarterbacks differ from each other
I can’t tell you that, either. Let your imagination wander. More importantly, let’s let Syracuse’s imagination wander.
