September 07, 2004
Audio from Tuesday's football media luncheon is available through the links to the right. Files can be downloaded and are in MP3 format. More files will be posted soon.
A transcript of Coach Dennis Franchione's press conference on Tuesday at the Bright Football Complex is posted below...
How long does it take young players to get to the level that you want them to get to?
"I don't know if there's an answer to that question I can give you. It varies with each player. It's an individual setting and sometimes the position they play has something to do with it and sometimes the adjustment they're making is from position to new position or offensive to defense. The learning curve is a little different for each one."
Do the young players sense that they don't have the luxury of sitting back three years watching a starter, and that they need to grow up and play better?
"I don't think that's the way they think. I think they came to play, they're excited to play, they want to play. We want every player on our football team to want to play. Obviously they're not all going to this year or this week or next two weeks, but we want them all to play. I don't think there's any pressure on the young guys like you talked about. I think the pressure is self-imposed; they want to play well, hold on to their position, make plays and be a part of success. And they want to have success right now. Young people today are living in the next five minutes and that's what they want to do."
Talk a little bit about the offensive line. How did the moving of Geoff Hangartner to tackle and freshman Chris Yoder into the starting lineup work?
"I thought Chris (Yoder) did a solid job for his first collegiate game. We were fortunate that we got to play more guys. We got a look at them and it give them more experience. Whether that's going to be a permanent fixture that way remains to be seen. I think it will be this week, but Corey Clark, Grant Dickey, Kirk Elder - I know I'm leaving somebody else off there, but a lot of guys got some valuable experience and are going to get better because of that."
You moved Hangartner from center where he's been an all-conference player. How tough of a call is that for the coaches to make?
"Well, it's not an easy call because when you're building an offensive line, you want to be solid at center, then you can start to build around it. When you're not very good at center, then all the other pieces to the puzzle are a little bit more difficult. The center makes so many calls to start all the progressions of who's blocking who and how they're handling protections and Chris (Yoder) did a pretty good job of that the other night. The determining factor for us came down to our fifth best guy was Chris and because of the ability of Geoff to play well out on the edge. We needed somebody to protect the edge."
Had Geoff ever played that position before - high school or scrimmage at all last year? Practice?
"I think Jim Bob (Helduser) knew enough about how Geoff handles things to be okay out there. Early in fall camp we did a lot of rotation. Cody Wallace, Corey Clark and Geoff and different people trying to find the right combinations. In fact, probably all the way through the first 19 practices, if I remember, at our second scrimmage we weren't very good offensively. Part of the reason was because we were still moving people around up front trying to find who we wanted to play where."
Would you suspect that Chris Yoder would have been starting had Geoff been there in the spring to take those snaps?
"Well, I think it was a bonus for Chris that Geoff wasn't there. Because he had to be the guy and he had to go work against the first defense and that probably helped Chris in the long run."
He got almost every snap. I would assume - maybe every snap against Utah.
"I think he did get every snap. One of the difficult things is Geoff is first team tackle and second team center. You know, if something happened and we started to mix our best players, we would probably move back Geoff to center and Corey Clark to tackle. That's at this point in time. Cole Smith is working with our second team at center and some guys still may come up and make it more solid at that position. Our goal as coaches is to put the five best players on the field."
One of the secondary guys said so much what happened on Thursday night was a lack of communication and was correctible. Is that the way you saw it?
"Yeah. I don't think there's any doubt we can play better than what we played. I don't want to take anything away from Utah. They played very well and they're good team, but I think all of us feel they can play better and will play better."
Especially in the first half it seemed like Courtney (Lewis) didn't quite have the confidence he's had in some other games.
"Well, I'm going to throw you a bone here on injuries. Don't ask for any more bones today. Okay? Courtney has been banged up and he played banged up and that affected his game. You know, we've got to get him healthy. I think one of you wrote that we didn't give it to him enough. That's probably why we didn't give it to him enough."
You went with Ty (Branyon) late in the game. Is that to the give you the flexibility of a redshirt for Stephen McGee?
"Yes, and no. I think Ty was the guy that was next in line at this point in time. And we didn't want to throw away a redshirt on Stephen going in and playing ten plays in the first ball game. I still don't believe we're going to redshirt him but you know, I don't want to look up at the end of the season and hear he's played 50 plays and that's been a year 1 for him. Coach Koennig and I talked about it there late in the game and just made a decision that in this game we weren't going to put him in just put him in and get a few plays."
Evaluate Reggie's practice - what he's been able to do and his progress for Saturday...
"The only practice we've really had was a light workout on Friday and then Sunday He did fine on Sunday. We started to work on the game plan just a little bit. We will start on Wyoming in earnest today and I expect him to do everything today."
Does it make you feel better that you might have Ty Branyon as a buffer between Reggie and Stephen? Looked like it might just be Reggie and Stephen and that was - you might have to go with this true freshman not having any other option.
"I'm not uncomfortable going with a true freshman if he's ready. I don't believe he's quite ready yet. We could play Stephen today; but we would give him a little bit smaller package and not overload him, but that's true of any freshman quarterback in America. Stephen's not completely ready for everything Reggie's ready for, but I've played freshman quarterbacks before and I'm not uncomfortable doing that. As we would do with any player, whether it was Reggie, Ty or Stephen, we're going to design what they can do and not overload them and then let them play within themselves. In 1999 (at TCU) I played a freshman quarterback (Casey Printers) almost all year and we won a conference championship. It's not an easy position for a freshman to go in and play but certainly one that's doable. Kansas did a good job with their guy (Adam Barmann) last year and Tennessee started a true freshman on Saturday. It's not one of those things that can't happen."
There was talk that a number of true freshman were going to see action against Utah, but only one did (Kerry Franks). Any reason?
"I guess that's because we got a lot of true redshirt freshman right in front of them. You know, you go down the pecking order of the depth chart and work down and Kerry Franks is the one that was most ready in game one. That total may grow a little bit as we go on here in the next couple of weeks but again a little bit like Stephen. I wasn't going to throw him out there to throw him out there and put a lot of thought into it before we do. I think there will be a few more to play."
Last year maybe you didn't play as many freshman as well. Looking ahead this year, possibly, maybe freshmen can help you win a game here or there. Is that possibly different than last year at this time looking down the road?
"No. That's not any different than last year. Anybody that we think can win we're going to play. If they can help us win. But that's the key -- they have to be ready to help us be successful. We're not just going to play them to play them. As I tell them, this is not intramurals. We play for keeps in this game. I think in the next three weeks maybe there will be some of them that get more prepared to play in a game or by necessity may need to play the game. But our thoughts never really change on that. We don't want to play them before we think they can have success. One of the worst things we do is put a freshman out there before he's ready. If he has a bad experience his confidence gets broke a little bit and then we spend time rebuilding that."