“We are plugging along in camp. Lot of good things. Lot of guys learning situational football. Veterans are teaching the young guys. I’ve been very pleased. Work ethic has been good. Practice has been pretty physical. We are in the part where you find out the game is a little bit farther away, beginning of camp is a little bit farther away, and you start looking at ‘how much do I love this thing”, typical camp stuff. They’re banged and bruised. Bodies are tired. They’ve been grinding. Now you are starting to find out who likes football and who can play and push through those things. That is what camp is about and getting to that part. I’ve been very excited about our guys. They’ve been making some good progress. There are some things we have got to get better on which is everything. A lot of young guys will be counted on in key positions. You are only one ankle turn, knee twist or shoulder bang from a lot of guys playing. I think that the key to in our time of day in sports is young guys have to be big contributors in your teams. They have to be counted upon whether they are starters or not. They have to give valuable reps, special teams reps. If some guy gets nicked or banged up, that they can go in a game and play. You have to count on those youngsters. That is the challenge right now, and this practice is a little bit different than what they had in high school. Guys are not only as good as them but the grind of it, the mental grind of it, and the large volume of capacity, whether it is offense or defense. You have to learn how to capitalize on situational football and how you have to think. On that call on a down and distance it is one way, on that call it is that way, and then reminding them daily. It has been fun. Young guys, you push them and challenge them. It is fun to watch them learn, and watch them grow. We are getting there. Our young guys are doing a good job. I am really proud of the offense, defense, guys we recruited, and how they are playing. The older guys are doing a good job of keeping them under their wing and coaching them. Practices have gotten good and heated and intense, like they should be. We just have to keep pushing through our last scrimmage on Sunday, and then start getting ready in what we are trying to do. We have a lot of young guys that I am proud of and older guys, so the team is progressing nicely.”
On Bryce Foster and the rest of the young offensive linemen …
Those young linemen, we didn’t miss on any of those guys. I like that group, I think they all have potential. Bryce is one of the guys that I think has a chance to contribute very early because of his physicality. Most guys that are freshmen are built like that and aren’t that strong coming in. I’ve been around quite a few of them and they have turned out to be great players. The other thing about him is that he’s very intelligent. He picks things up very well.
On what caught his eye when recruiting Devon Achane …
The unbelievable productivity. You know about the long runs, but when you watch film on him, he looks so smooth. I watch the film and though, this guy can run, and then I saw his track times and though, wait a minute now. Those track times are world class. I’ve coached some guys that were world class guys. Quite a few, I’ve been fortunate in my career. Some of the top sprinters in the world today, and in the past. He was so smooth doing it that you didn’t realize. And in football, if he got ahead he didn’t have to go run 10-flat because he was still going to score. But the thing about him that amazed me is usually with track guys they are a little bit out of control or there is come unnaturalness to them. He was so natural and smooth that he made it look easy. You didn’t realize how fast he was. And the other thing was the toughness part. He would block you, hit you, break tackles. He made you miss so easily. And he has great ball skills. And to be honest, as good as I thought he was, he was better in person. He has a chance to be a really good football player.
On what his is expecting to gain from Sunday’s scrimmage …
I want to see guys gain the knowledge of what we are doing, the execution of our offense. Understanding situations, taking care of the ball on offense, be efficient with it, make good decisions with it. Put hats on hats. We don’t want to have missed assignments or stupid penalties, the self-inflicted wounds that can set you back. Defensively, we don’t want to give up big plays. We want to tackle well, play the run, and be physical, set edges. We don’t’ want to give up the perimeters of the defense. They need to play like they know what’s going on. What the scheme is, what the system is. Not have multiple missed assignments or busted coverages. The knowledge of how to play and play with consistency. And then see how they interact. How they take signals and see how they interact when the coaches aren’t out there on the field. The communication processes. The communication in the first scrimmage I was very happy with. I was very excited through our first scrimmage about how we did that, we didn’t have hardly any miscommunications, which was very encouraging.
