Rich Rodriguez Press Conference | Aug. 10

So Rich, the other day we talked about offensive line. So switch over to defensive line and give me your impressions of what you got there. You got some returners and a lot of new players. Yeah, I always keep my roster hidden with these guys. I don't want to leave anybody out. Yeah, I had a couple guys that graduated, some pretty good players. I got a little bit of experience with McIntyre and Big Nate Gabriel. They're kind of the leaders up front. But the Bandit Edges D.N. room is almost entirely new, I think, pretty much. But we got some guys like Zeke Campbell that's played a lot of football. Let me see who else is at the other side. Harper Holliman's played a lot of football. Jeremiah Johnson's played a lot of football. David Opago's played a lot of football. Toby Hatshep is an extremely talented young guy that we got from Oregon. I think he's got a great future. Still learning. Darius Wiley was a guy we got at junior college. He's got a huge upside and works really hard. I think he can be an impact player for us. So there's a lot of new faces. But I think the talent is there. And we have some experience, and we do so much with them. And Coach Alley and his scheme, there's a lot for them to learn. But they've done a good job. What do you need from Gabriel this year? Well, he's – without a whole lot of seniors, you know, and even less, I guess, last year players, we're probably going to call him out because it's five years. You know, there's – the leadership probably got to come from some guys that have been here and played a little bit like Nate. And he's been fantastic. I mean, on and off the field. You know, a great example, you know, was early to work. Leads the way all the way around. And I don't like to say, I don't need a whole lot – I don't need leadership during practice. Hell, that's what the coaches pay to do. But, you know, in the locker room, off the field, when they're on their own, that kind of stuff, you need somebody that's mature and can lead them the right way. Especially with all these new guys. And even if you're an older guy and you're mature, you know, this is going to be – you know, how we do things is new. You know, every program is run a certain way. And, you know, what I'm asking for the veterans that were here a year ago is help educate our guys that this is how practice is run. These are the expectations and all that. You have a bunch of defensive guys that are junior college. I mean, defensive line and even in secondary. So, is it – what's the process for a junior college guy? I assume it's easier than a high school player making the transition. Yeah, they're a little older. You know what, I think – I don't want to say the Jaycees are getting overlooked per se, but I do think with the transfer portal where it is, there's more guys getting portal guys than Jaycee guys. And there's still a lot of really – there's always been good football players in the junior college ranks. But I think some of them are getting overlooked now because the schools are just going to, you know, veterans out of the portal as opposed to junior college. And we found, and that was one reason we signed them, and we didn't – and I've said this before, I don't care if they're from a high school or from another school in the portal, or if they're junior college guys, let's just find the best players we can find. If they have multiple years left, that brings more value. And so that was the advantage of the junior college guys, they all got at least two years, some of them got three years left now. So, we're going to continue to recruit the junior college guys and there's some good ones out there. Is Wiley what you thought he would be? Yeah, he's every bit of it. And he's – and the good thing about Darius is he's really hungry to learn too. You know, he's – you know, you see him, he wants to do a little extra, he's – you know, every day he's getting a little bit better. And he was well coached in junior college, but he's also a guy that you could tell that football is really important to him. And I hope it is for everybody. But it's ironic, the guys that are talented and football is really, really important to them, wind up being the best players. And you hope all of them kind of take that attitude. Coach, you talked a lot about leadership there. I think it was Ben Cutter last week talked about how he feels this particular group is more mature, I think was the word he used, and would be better suited to handle adversity during games. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I hope so, but until we do it, you know. He's been here for a minute. Yeah, I think until we do it, you don't know. But I – you know, I don't – you know, maybe it's different. I don't like to worry about their mental aspect of things go well, things don't go well and all that. It's all about being part of hard edge. It doesn't matter, you know, what the heck the score is, where you're at, who you're playing, what time of day it is. I mean, it's me against him and you're going to get every bit I got all the time. You know what I mean? When that guy – I don't want our guys thinking about, oh, you know, what's the score? Oh, where are we playing at? Oh, we had a bad game. Oh, I made a mistake. And, you know, I mean, we – It seems though that adversity is going to happen even if you win a national championship. That's right. Yeah, it is. It is and I think sometimes – and it's not anybody's fault. I mean, you all just report what you see and what's going on out there. And if it's, you know, a bad game or a bad play, whatever. I mean, those that follow the game and those of you that cover the game are going to say what it is and players have to be adapted to it. But, you know, it's like booing players, right? You know, like in the NFL, you boo those guys. Those guys are getting a lot of money, you know. You got to – you pay for your ticket, you got every right to boo them. But now, you know, I can't – We ain't going to get upset if you boo a college player because they're getting paid. You know what I mean? So they got to take that pro approach and understand that they may be – If you're not playing well and the fans are paying good money to come to the games and they boo you or whatever. Hey, that's part of the deal. And I think, you know, a lot of – Before I would have said that, hey, you know, they're college guys. You know, give them a little break, whatever. But now I can't say that, you know. It's like, they got every right to boo. Rich, have you done any special teams work yet or is that – Yeah, every day. We're doing more. We're going to do – we're doing more than – And I've always had kind of the same schedule pretty much over the 29 years or whatever. But, you know, because we have so many new guys on the special teams and new specialists and all that, we're doing a little bit more special teams every day than we did a year ago. You know, today we're doing field goal every day. We're doing punt every day. We did punt block today. We did a little bit of kickoff as well. We'll have them all in by tomorrow. And then we're going to rep quite a bit of them. And a lot of them is part of having a lot of new guys is you got to figure out your special teams starters too. So that's – we're sorting through that every day. Do you get a feel for your returners in that area? Yeah, a little bit. DJ Epps is going to be back there. Probably Montee Weaver. Cyrus Trawl. There's a couple other guys that I don't know. Matt Sieg will probably be catching punts too. There's – you know, that's going to – and that's really the hardest thing to figure out because I don't – I don't know if I've ever went live kickoff in preseason. Probably should have. But I don't know if I ever have because it's such a crazy play. So, but I think we have – we have enough talent to do it. Rich, is there anything new as far as your roster or even a perspective about what to do with that five-for-five stuff now that about a week has passed? No, we're – maybe you guys can tell me if we've been practicing this morning. Did any of the NCAA ruling on the class action suit? Nothing came out today, right? As far as the guys that have in the fifth year. So we have a couple of guys that we've talked to and communicated and you know, if the five-year class action thing goes through then we may have a couple added. But as far as guys out of the portal or suing to get in the portal, whatever that is, you know, that's – you know, we're not – we don't have anybody right there just yet. And then on your offensive line, Wes King, played a lot of football before here, but exclusively left guard and now he's at center. Center, yeah. Is that unusual at all? And then how has he taken to playing a new position? Yeah, he's a really savvy football player. Like I said, he's got a whole lot of experience and so it was a natural for him to be at center. We got Landon at center as well. Cam Griffith, who's been in our system, can play all three positions. So we've – you know, you got to have – you can't have too many centers. Wes is a veteran guy, so we're giving him an opportunity to play there. And it's like, you know, Landon is a veteran guy, he's playing multiple positions up front. Coach Trickett's got a pretty good rotation trying to find the top 10 or 11. Let's talk about the fans going there for a minute. Would you prefer that they move to a state home, number one? Did you ever boo anyone? Oh, no, I didn't. Because I didn't know what – it would be a shame that – I booed myself before. Like man, that was a terrible call. What the hell am I thinking, you know? But, you know, I've been in games where we've got booed and understood it. You know, even that game when players weren't getting played, they were just maybe booing the coach. That's probably warranted. You know, I think it's – you know, there's – I don't know, it's probably society today, they're more likely to express their feelings maybe. I don't know. But I don't – I've never – because I know what goes into it. I don't think anybody intentionally, like any player or coach is intentionally – no coach is intentionally making a bad call. No coach is intentionally – no player is intentionally making a bad play. And I guess you got to throw officials in there too, right? Like, have I ever booed an official? No. Have I yelled at him? Have I ever got a 15-yard penalty? Never. In 29 years as a head coach. Never got a 15-yard penalty. Deserved a few. You know, I don't know how I got out of them. But I think what happens a lot of times with football, I might – you know, you might be screaming and yelling. Hell, they can't hear you anyway. You know, or they ignore you. So I've been ignored a lot in 29 years. But officials, you know, when fans boo the official because they think it's a bad call. I mean, they pay their ticket, they can have at it. You know what I mean? Officials, they understand that. Red, back to the return game a little bit you were talking about. With so many changes over the past few years in the punt game, kickoff, what you can do on blocking, that kind of stuff. Has that changed what you look for in returners other than just being a good catcher? No, the first thing is catch the ball. You know, and the punt lock, you know, obviously your punters are – they're even more talented today. I mean, they can place the ball so many different things. They're role punting and all that. And so we ask our punters to be able to do a variety of kicks. You know, not your – you know, we want to do what they do the best most of the time. But if they have the ability to roll out and kick it as a roll out, or they can roll out and kick a line drive, or they can roll right and kick left. If they have the ability to do all that, then it makes your punt team a little bit harder to go after and get a block at or something like that. So, and in special teams it's – you know, to me I like – I'm a little different. Like a lot of teams say put your best guys always on all the starting special teams. And there's certain – like if a guy's a special returner, or he's a special guy getting off the ball to block, yeah you want to put him on there. But I like a guy that maybe he's not a starter on offensive defense, but he's a contributor. But he can be a starter on special teams. And so I like to play a lot of guys that are maybe not a starter on ones, the rotational guys, but they're starters on special teams. And so that gives me a way to play a lot of guys. I've said before, I want to – whatever the record is, I like to set an NCAA record for the number of players that play in a game. You know, because when they're playing they're happy. If they're not playing they're probably not happy and I understand that competitiveness. Quarterbacks continue to carry over the momentum from the spring and summer? Yeah, it's been okay. There's been times where it's uneven. You know, where the quarterbacks are holding on to the ball too long, or you know, not seeing the field quick enough. And they're still learning to quit looking at our guys and start looking at their guys more often. But it's been a pretty solid group. Back to defensive line, behind Corey and Nate, what do you look like? Behind Corey and Nate. Okay, can I look at my chart? So we have a young guy named Yander Mack. He's a true freshman out of Harrisburg. Going to be a really good player. You know, there's no red shirt anyway. We're going to get him ready to play. Will LeBlanc's a little banged up. He's a transfer out of Division II school. He's going to be a good – he's going to contribute and play. I'm looking at the inside. You talking about inside guys or outside? Jim, outside, huh? Yeah, inside guys. Oh, inside guys. Taylor Brown has been here. He's an athletic guy. He's got a chance. Jalen Thomas is a junior college guy. He's got a lot of potential. And he and KJ Henson are two new guys that's got some size and can help us. But they're still adjusting to, you know, Division I, Power IV football. But I think they can help us and they're working really hard. Rich, a little more about your junior college guys. You committed a couple of them like before Sunday, I think. But also, we'll probably recruit them for a long time too. If you think it's untapped, do you have to treat them like four-for-four transfers? Or not just junior college guys you athlete, but somebody you actually think they can – Yeah, well now having junior college guys, you can get them for three years now, which is a bonus. And then if they can get out, which our guys could, to get here in January was a big plus. You know, there's always junior colleges, depending what JC they're at. A lot of them you don't get until, you know, June. And so it's an uphill climb for them to get ready. There was a couple like that, but most of our guys have been here. So it makes a big difference. Even with the high school kids too. The high school kids that were here in January are ahead of the high school kids that got here in June. And that will always be the case. Rich, that depth chart that you made in the spring, do you use that at all in the fall? No, no I don't. Like we have a depth chart, we look at it and we update every day. And it fluctuates every day in camp. So, but I'm not like, it'd be useless for me to give you one because then you'll run with it and it'll be like, it'll change in an hour, you know. So I don't like, and I tell the guys, don't worry about like, if you're first or second or third, just get good enough to win with and you'll play. If you're good enough to win with, you'll play. If you're not, you won't. That's it. Thank you.