Latest / Coaches Corner / UCFB Coach's Show Aug 24- Seg 1

Transcript

UCFB Coach's Show Aug 24- Seg 1 · Coaches Corner

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  Welcome on board. We are live inside our Duncan Music Lounge here in our
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  headquarters in Hartford of iHeartMedia. I'm Mike Chrispino, the voice of the Huskies,
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  along with the head coach of the Yukon Football Huskies, Jamor. We've
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  got a great crowd here with us tonight, a lot of our important sponsors
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  and folks that support the program. We really appreciate their appearance here. Coachably
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  shaking hands, has already been doing at signing autographs, but talking to us
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  mostly for the next hour about Yukon football and coach first off six and six
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  regular season last year. That was the most wins in seven years in this
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  program. I might have asked you this one other time, but you took
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  the program that had won four games in three years thirty two losses. What
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  did you see in your mind that said we can get this thing back up
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  on its feet and get it moving forward. Well, I think there's a
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  lot of things, you know. First of all, it was the people
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  that were here, and I spent a lot of time with David Benedict in
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  the interview process, and I got a lot of time spent with people on
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  Zoom calls, whether they were administrators or they were former players, or even
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  our governor, some of our fans, members of our board of trustees,
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  and there was just a passion that I felt amongst the people that were going
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  to support the program. I'd spent time in Connecticut working, you know,
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  in media, so I knew this area. I'd been on campus, I
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  knew there's great facilities. And then I think the thing that made me really
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  feel like we had a chance was when I was able to spend time with
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  our players. We have a really unique group of players. I've been doing
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  this most well, really, I'd say all my life, you know,
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  in some former fashion football and football teams. I've always been a part of
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  my life. And I found a group of young men that were very unique,
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  especially in this day and age where there's a lot of entitlement out there,
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  and these guys are just blue call or and they want to work,
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  and they understand the hard work, and they don't take anything for granted.
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  They don't expect anything. They were very close knit. They'd been through a
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  lot together and they'd survived from having their season, you know, COVID season
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  canceled to the tough season the year before when when there's a coaching change earlier
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  in the year, and I felt like, it's just that group of young
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  men. If we could just somehow change the mindset a little bit, could
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  do some good things. And you know, I was really proud of them
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  and the way that they overcame a one in four start, I think it
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  was, yeah, one in four start, and it could have gone either
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  way. They could have gone into the World War. Here we go again,
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  you know, same whole thing. And they never did that. And
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  so that was something that inspired me every single day just being around those players.
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  Yeah, they did lose four out of five to start the season,
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  outscored. You know, it took gazillion to nothing. I'm gonna give you
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  the numbers, one hundred forty eight to twenty four and three things. Appreciate
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  that you couldn't be more discouraged. I'm just thinking as a fan, as
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  a coach, whatever, it didn't matter. You came back, You beat
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  Fresno State, you beat BC, first time that ever happened, Liberty.
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  You won five of the next six. So you know, we're not gonna
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  spend too much time on last year. But there has to be a turning
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  point sometimes in seasons. Can you remember what happened that got this thing going
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  in the right direction. Well, a couple of things, A few things
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  number one, and there are no moral victories, but we had that three
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  game stretch where most of those one hundred and forty eight points were scored.
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  And you know when we played Syracuse in Michigan and NC State and we never
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  gave in. You know, they just they never relented. They got we
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  got beat, but our players never gave in. And that was a real
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  positive for me, and to me, it kind of strengthened that belief that
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  there was a real resolve around here amongst those players. I felt like the
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  turning point in our season, if there was one, was actually in a
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  loss. And that sounds probably we counterintuitive because usually people say it was this
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  win, this moment in this game. But it was at ball State.
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  You know, we'd won a couple of games and I think we're maybe feeling
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  ourselves a little bit, and we were up twenty one. I think we
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  were up twenty one to seven maybe going into the fourth quarter, and they
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  just ram the ball down our throat and they beat us and went in the
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  locker room and there was a different vibe in there. It was a group
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  of men that were not ready to accept defeat anymore. They'd grown, their
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  standard had been raised, and I feel like that was when, you know,
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  maybe not the season, but hopefully the fortunes of the program started to
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  really change in that moment. So fast forward to this year. Last year,
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  somebody smarter than I called it a revolution, and I thought that worked.
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  Now this year, you're calling it a reload. And for folks who
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  don't know this listening right now, ten offensive players who've got a lot of
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  time last year back, you had eight on defense. Back. That's a
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  good number in college football today. How does that make you feel in terms
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  of where you're at is a program and being able to step forward having returning
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  players like that who experienced everything that they did last year. Oh, it's
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  huge. I mean it's huge because they understand the expectations. They have a
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  much more clear understanding what we're doing schematically, offensively, defensively, on special
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  teams. They they have played alongside each other more so they understand, you
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  know, how to work together. And then they set the tempo, you
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  know, they set the standard, They set the expectations for the guys that
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  haven't played or haven't been starters. So I think we're really lucky. And
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  you know, a lot of times you can have a lot of returning starters,
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  but returning players, but it's the actual who are the returners. So
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  when you look at a guy like Christian, I'm just gonna name two guys
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  Christian and Hayes on offense and Jackson Mitchell on defense, you go, well,
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  you know, those are a couple of guys that you like having to
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  return because they set the expectations for everybody. You know, their their work
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  ethic is beyond reproach, their attitude, their leadership, you know, everything
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  that they do, neither of them very loud. They do it with their
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  actions rather than their words, which I think that the best leaders do.
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  And so when you have those type of men returning, it bodes well for
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  what you have, you know, down the road. Yeah, in college
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  sports today, and we'll talk about this a little later in the show.
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  With the transfer portal wide open all the time, guys can pick up the
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  phone or whatever they do and get out of town in a minute. Keeping
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  guys together is important. I mean, do you look at that as maybe
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  your most important job? Keeping guys in the fold and getting them feeling that
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  next year is going to be better and we're going to do more. I
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  mean, it's certainly I don't say it's the most important thing, but it's
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  certainly important. You didn't in the old days have to recruit your own players.
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  Now you have to canually recruit your own players. And you know,
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  I think you do that a number of ways. Number one, you know,
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  if they're in an environment that's that's healthy, that's positive, that's upbeat,
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  that shows hope, that they feel valued in, they feel pushed in,
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  they feel disciplined in, they feel held to a certain standard because you
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  know, everyone wants winners want to be held to a high standard. They
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  want people to be on them. If they feel like you're doing everything you
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  can to help them maximize their ability, which maximizes their ability to to maybe
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  have a future in this business, then it's not necessarily recruiting. But that's
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  what we try to do with all our players, regardless if there's a trans
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  report or not, you know, because I think that's the right way to
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  go about it, and so that's what we do. But you know,
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  I mean there's been there's been people that have come and tried to poach our
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  players, you know, And that's a big issue in the NCA right now.
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  It's not necessarily the transfer portal, it's it's it's these people that are
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  breaking the rules by coming and trying to pay your players before they're in the
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  play in the portal. And we've had that on several instances, and it's
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  rampant across the country. And you know, that's what scares me more than
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  anything, is that someone comes in and buys someone off. Now, having
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  said that, if we have a play on our team that's for sale and
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  he decides to go somewhere else for money, then you know what, I
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  probably don't want him on our team because he's on our team for the wrong
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  reasons. Yeah, there are a lot of the athletes in the college level
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  these days, in all of sports football, basketball, that are being offered
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  sums of money and they're trying to capitalize on their skills or whatever they have
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  athletically. It's difficult, there's no question about it. We're going to talk
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  about you have a new special assistance, you've got a new quarterback, you
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  decided on who that's going to be, and then we're gonna talk about preparation
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  for a team that kicked your butt last year. And see states they didn't
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  kick this team's, but that team and this team, two different teams playing
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  a week from tonight. All right, I'm glad you put me in my
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  place. I'm I know you've said this before. We don't worry about revenge
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  games around that stuff, but I that stuff gets in my head. No,
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  I think I get upset about things. Yeah, you know, for
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  for for fans and for people on the outside, is you know what happened
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  last year, but this is a new team for us, and it's a
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  new team for them. So last year's team kicked our team's last year's teams.
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  But but this game hadn't happened. You know, this team has never
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  played that team. So hey, they're really really good. I mean they're
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  big, they're physical, they're fast, they're well coach. They have a
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  new offensive coordinator, new offensive line coach. Unfortunately, the coordinator came from
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  Syracuse, who you know, kicked last year's team kicked our team. But
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  so there's some challenges there, but it's gonna be it's gonna be fun.
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  Yeah, their offensive coordinator, Robert Anna, I think a guy came from
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  Virginia. Now, I was a huge fan of Mike Leach got rest his
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  soul when the way he ran offense, and this guy's kind of like him.
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  So we're going to talk about that. You're a defensive coordinator. You
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  got to be having some sleepless nights here getting ready for this NC State team.
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  I am, yeah. You know. Here's the problem is that so
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  the coordinator, the offensive line coach, and the quarterback who just transferred in
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  we're all together at Virginia in twenty twenty one. Then the offensive coordinator went
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  to Syracuse last year, and now that all three of them are back together
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  at NC State this year. So we are looking at two twenty one Virginia
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  tape because they got the same quarterback, same offensive line coach, same officive
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  coordinator. We're looking at twenty twenty two Syracuse film because that's where Nea was,
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  and we've also got to look at the personnel of NC State. So
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  it could be a little confusing unless you're able to sort it out for your
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  players, which we've been working hard to do. And the good thing is
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  you have an experienced group on the defensive side of the ball. I mean,
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  I love our defensive line I do. I love those guys, Eric
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  Watts, all of them. And you have six or seven defensive linemen.
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  I mean, just throw some names out there are guys that you can go
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  to, you know, in different formations, different down and distance situations.
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  It's a it's a nice it's a nice thing to have. I think it's
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  the most physically demanding position to play on the football field because you've got these
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  monsters coming at you every down. You're taken on double teams, so you
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  have to be able to have a rotation. And you know, I think
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  that we've got This sounds crazy, but we've got ten or eleven guys maybe
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  eleven or twelve guys that I feel we can put in the game and win
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  with at that position. And that's a credit to them and the way they've
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  worked. It's a credit to Matt King, our strength and conditioning coach and
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  the way that he's to helped develop them, and our nutritionists Sarah and Kenny
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  McClinton, and our defensive line coach. But most of all to the players
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  in the way they've they've committed to being good players. Yeah, Ryan,
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  Yeah, I'm just gonna yell some names up. Price Yates, fred shirt
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  sophomore Colin McCarthy Dalmont Gordyne. Is that right as a Gordon or Gordyne,
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  Yeah, yeah, something like that. It's get Stafford, Pots or Hooper.
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  I mean, these guys they were skilled last year and they did some
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  great things last year. I'm really looking forward to that D line. We
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  have to go to a commercial break, so we're gonna We're gonna do that,
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  as Vanessa stepping in. Thank you, Vanessa. You're listening to the
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  Yukon Football Coaches Show.