Aug. 19, 2000
Opening Comments:
“The fortunate thing is that we came out after almost two and a half hours of work without any injuries. That is the most important thing. The other things you can solve, and we have to work our tail off the next two weeks to solve them, but it was fortunate to have that kind of work with no injuries.”
“Our overall execution was solid. I am not sure we don’t spoon-feed them a little too much in practice. Coaches being out on the field, helping them with the checks and things like that. We need to get the coaches to completely back away from it. We need to let this football team play on its own over the next two weeks.”
“We have a new quarterback, a new center and some players on defense who have not played a whole lot. I am pleased with what we did today and what we accomplished. You go out there at nine o’clock this morning, coming out of two-a-days, and to me it is more about checking the attitude of your team rather than the execution. Anytime you got some guys nicked up and injured, plus coming out right after two-a-days for an early practice, I don’t think you look at it quite the way you would if a team was fresh and together. I was pleased with the attitude of our team. We scrimmaged more than we thought we were going to. We did a lot of situation things, goal line work against each other, a two minute drill against each other. All-in-all it was a good day.”
On the improvement of the team heading into the final two weeks of the pre-season:
“We would like to think we are on schedule. We have some nicks and injuries that have affected our work a little bit, but I don’t think more than any other team in this country. This football team is further along at this point this year than we were last year. I feel pretty confident about that. We all know who the teams we open up with are (Texas A&M and Nebraska) and all that matters is what we do against those teams. You really can’t compare yourself with someone else, you can only compare with what you had in the past. I think we have a chance to be a really solid football team.”
On any players standing out in practice today:
“The young quarterbacks did some good things. We went in and did some live tackling, tackling the quarterback along with everyone else, and I think all three (freshman) quarterbacks (Carlyle Holliday, Matt LoVecchio and Jared Clark) did some good things.”
“It wasn’t a scrimmage when one person stepped up and caught my eye. When we get to look at the tape, maybe we’ll see some subtle things that someone did better than someone else.”
On the kicking game:
“Joey Hildbold really punted the football well. He is ahead of Nick Setta at this point. Field goal kicking, I would have to say David Miller. Kick-offs, if we went today, it would be Matt McNew.”
“The great thing about it is that we have two more weeks and there is going to be some great competition. The kicking game was probably the one priority coming into this morning. Tomorrow we are going to look at the tape and Monday we are going to devote and entire practice to the kicking game. I thought it was productive today.”
On his concerns coming into this season:
“The number one concern coming into this year is the defense. Number two, I would have to say is the depth of the front seven on defense, particularly at linebacker. Number three would be the secondary. We gave up so many big plays last year. It is funny to say that we have youth in the secondary, but Tony Driver and Brock Williams have not played that much football on defense.”