(Secondary) coach (Chris) Ball is grinning from ear to ear. The main thing today is to find out who can make a play, who can come together. |
For three years, I've tried to encourage them to play within their personalities. They see life as alive and full speed, and we've tried not to box 'em up. |
He doesn't talk much around anybody. Maybe he does when he's not in the (football) building. What he does say, though, matters. You need to listen when he talks. |
His wife is getting an extra star in heaven, I promise you. |
I did a poor job. That's my fault. That's not the players job, that's my fault. |
I don't know that you enjoy looking at any of this mess. It's fun to look at if you're not involved in it. We just have to find a way to rush the passer, to cover some folks and then find some way to pressure it. |
I thought it was a real solid class. It was a class that met needs. With the package we're playing now (with extra defensive backs), we'll probably load the field with guys who have that kind of ability. |
I thought the effort was good today. We were trying to get better as a unit. We haven't played together. The only thing that's going to help us is playing. |
If you go into the game thinking we are going to throw strikes every snap, we could drive ourselves crazy. We could drive our youngsters crazy. They understand what is in front of them. |
In high school, he was a great rusher. He's got tremendous athletic ability. We've got to find a place that he can contribute. He's got some ball skills that lend themselves to that position. |
Most coaches can't stand (this system). They're going to add two more plays, thinking if this one is good, then one more would be great. But they're running the same plays and the same system. |
Neither can you rush everybody. Then you're one missed tackle away from a touchdown. |
Other than that drive that was all my fault, they did pretty good. That first one was all on me. We had no rhythm, we settled down and came back and played pretty good. |
That's 12 runners and hitters. That's really what we were looking at. Obviously, there were others we were looking at that chose to go elsewhere, but we're really proud of the ones we got. They all have some things in common: they all can run, they can strike you and this group's grades are as strong as any we've signed in a long time. |
We didn't want to give up that touchdown at the end, but they had been scoring about 80 points a game, and to give up 10 ain't too bad. |