Latest / Coaches Corner / FB Coach Jim Mora w Rob & Ben April 19

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FB Coach Jim Mora w Rob & Ben April 19 · Coaches Corner

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  And now it's Jim Moore, junior coach Yukon and Football, joining the Rob
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  Bauble Show with Ben Darnell. And we usually go about fifteen minutes in coach
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  before we get into our special guests, but you're probably above most of the
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  special guests in this neck of the woods. First of all, congratulations on
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  last year. Again, let me go back last year at this time,
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  what was going through your mind? What were some of your feelings and after
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  last season? Now where's your head at today? Well, last year this
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  time, we were just finishing up spring practice, which is really my first
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  exposure to these guys on the field, kind of getting enormous people as competitors,
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  you know, as football players in terms of their strengths and you know,
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  some of the things they need to improve on. And I had a
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  pretty strong feeling of hope. And I think that hope was based more upon
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  the type of kid that we had than anything. Just the character of this
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  team, you know, And I've I've always said that, what I've said
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  since I've been here is that one of the most impressive things to me about
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  this team is the character of the young men on this team and their complete
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  lack of a sense of entitlement and their willingness to work for everything. And
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  as we sit here a year later, you know, I feel that and
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  even more so, and I also feel like they haven't been able to keep
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  that attitude of achievement and competitiveness intact. You know, we're a better football
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  team because we've been together a year. We're further along in our scheme installation,
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  in our understanding what we're trying to be as a team offensively, defensively,
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  on special teams. We've added some talented players to this roster. Some
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  of our younger guys have gotten experienced and are becoming, you know, good
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  players, guys that we thought they'd become. We're developing depth. And yet
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  all that being said, you know, as a coach, it's important to
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  never feel like you've arrived or you've made enough progress. But I think we're
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  on the right path, and we have a ton of work to do.
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  We have our spring game coming up, our Spring showcase, we say,
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  coming up Saturday, and then we've got spring recruiting, and then our guys
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  get back at it the end of May, and you know, the season
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  comes up fast. So we've got a lot of work to do. But
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  we've got a group that's really willing and anxious to do the work. And
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  as a coach, it's always fun to be around people like that. Coach
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  Ben Darnell, I think Rob and I tried to warn you before you started
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  this journey that if you get close to winning a game in the fourth quarter,
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  this fan base is going to be going bonkers for you. And you're
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  like, well, hope they want us to win, and like, yes,
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  if you win, they will be even crazier. And one thing you've
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  done, You've made believers out of this fan base for this football program.
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  And I would say this coach, maybe take some credit or pass the buck
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  if you will, But I think that a winning football team started to vibe
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  around this community. And you know, there's a lot of people that deserved
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  some credit for that men's national championship, but nobody said Coach Mora. I'm
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  gonna say it right now. I think you created a vibe on campus that
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  permeated over two men's basketball and really the whole student body, and it keeps
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  on rolling with baseball and everything else we got going in the spring. But
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  I really do think that the vibe you created going to a bowl game,
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  and with that football program really started things for the athletics here twenty twenty three
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  at Yukon. Well, that's incredibly gracious of you. I'm going to dispute
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  you a little bit. I think there's been a hell of a basketball vibe
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  going on this campus for a long time. You know, Listen, all
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  I want to do is try to catch up and stay with some of the
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  great teams that are on our campus and support him as best we can,
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  but you know, try to try to make people their Yukon fans proud of
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  their team. And that's you know, one of our goals every single day,
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  and hopefully we're moving in that direct direction. Yeah, I'll tell you
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  what I think that the basketball team, the basketball teams, let me shoot,
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  our hockey team, our baseball team, our women's were across team,
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  you know, across the board. It's a very competitive school nationally and so
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  many sports, and that's fun to be a part of. You know,
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  it's fun to be on our campus where so many of your teams are having
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  so much national success. And I think it creates momentum within the afflets department
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  on every team, you know, like hey, let's get some of that
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  let's get some of that going. You know, let's hang a banner,
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  so we all kind of feed off each other. But man, with Danny
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  and and those men were able to accomplish, to me was awesome. I
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  don't think I ever had a doubt that they were going to win it.
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  And you know, being a coach, we're always a little bit skeptical.
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  But just the passion, the energy, and more so than anything was like
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  their discipline and staying focused was so impressive to me. As they went down
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  the stretch. They never ever lost their edge. They didn't have a bad
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  game, they didn't get out of rhythm, Their defense was impeccable, their
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  big time players played well when they needed to. I mean it was but
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  you saw or I thought like I thought coming all year, and you know
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  that's just a reflection of the head coach, you know, and and the
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  players he recruited and then buy an end to you know what, what he
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  thought was important for them to win. And man, it's just an honor
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  to be on campus with guys like Danny and and Gino. You know,
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  Gino spoke at our our coaches clinic Friday night. You know, here's our
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  our head women's basketball coach speaking at our men's football coaches clinic, and uh
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  so there's a real good synergy on this campus. Now we're talking to Jim
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  Moore Junior. He is the head coach of Yukon Football. I've I've gone
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  a many public speaking engagements of Geno. M He's amazing. He could coach
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  in any sport at any time. It doesn't matter male or female. Um,
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  but yourself included you. You threw yourself all in what you know.
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  And I came back here from LA I was out there when you were at
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  UCLA, and uh, you threw yourself all in as a family man.
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  And I think that that endeared you to the community. And you go to
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  all the other games. Now, Gino's going to Dan Hurley's games and Pender's
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  and all that stuff. And I think it's it's the family that aspect that
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  you bring and your father and all of that stuff. What I wanted to
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  ask you about is you're from a different era. Myself included, Um,
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  I'm gonna be sixty soon. Um. We were self motivated. It was
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  a totally different time. We didn't have social media, we didn't have the
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  internet, we didn't have any of that. Stuff, So it was it
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  was a little bit different. Um, how do you deal with the younger
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  kids, keeping them focused and not getting into trouble when they're not practicing or
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  playing football. Well, it's a challenge. I think it's a challenge any
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  where. I haven't found it to be an extreme challenge here just because the
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  type of young men we have on this team. But it's it's certainly a
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  concern all the time because as a head coach, you know, you assume
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  responsibility for everything, and you know, if our guys, you know,
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  are pushing the edge a little bit, it's important that we make them understand
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  the consequences. But you know, it's a different generation now, and their
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  attention span is not you know, as long as sometimes you'd like it to
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  be. But I think, you know, we have to adjust as much
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  as possible to to them, rather than asking them to adjust to us.
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  You know, I think sometimes coaches get irrelevant because they don't adapt with the
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  times and not really lucky, I have a very young coaching staff and they
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  kind of keep me, I think, you know, up to speed on
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  what's going on. You know, it would be really easy for me to
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  have a generational gap with my players, but I have a young staff that
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  has kind of made that easier for me. You know, it's little things
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  like you know, in the old days, you'd never let a player bring
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  a phone into a meeting room. And I think if you ask kids not
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  to bring a phone into a meeting right now, meeting room right now,
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  you create an anxiety. There's like a separation anxiety because they don't have their
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  phone. So what we do is, you know, we'll meet for twenty
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  to thirty minutes and give them five minutes to check their social media check in,
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  you know, check their text, their dms so that they can get
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  back to being refocused. And you know, that's kind of the way life
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  is being lived now by these kids, and we just have to stay relevant.
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  But it's a constant, constant source of concern for me is are the
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  players making good decisions, you know, not just for this football team,
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  but for their life. Are they doing the right things so we're giving them
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  the right guidance, Are we're putting them in good positions. Are we're giving
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  them support, creating structure, how we hold them accountable? And get said,
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  to start that long winded answer off, we have good kids and so
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  you know, knock on wood. We haven't had a lot of issues,
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  and I don't expect us to. All right, let's get into it.
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  Let me start with the worst part of your team last year. If I
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  was playing a Jim Moore twenty twenty two Connecticut football team, I'd put eight
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  in the box and go man on man coverage and not be afraid of your
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  passing game. Scare me. Now in twenty twenty three, why is this
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  year going to be different with the air attack for Yukon football? Oh man,
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  That's what I'd have done too. Yeah, and you know people did
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  that to us, and thank goodness, we were able to run the ball
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  effectively. I think that we're going to be better offensively because the group of
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  receivers we have have a much better understanding at this point of what is expected
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  of them. I think that we're going to be better offensively in the passing
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  game because you know, the quarterbacks that are competing right now for that starting
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  position are all guys that have seen some game time. You know Zion,
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  I mean he struggled at times last year. Now, he was playing a
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  lot of the year without a couple of his best receivers, and he was
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  a freshman, but he's come back this spring and he doesn't look like the
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  same player. You know, he's got a ton of confidence. He's got
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  you know, third twelve or he's got thirteen games under his belt, you
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  know, at the Division one level. And he's a really smart, a
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  competitive kid. And so he's a lot further along than I thought he'd be
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  going into his first spring, and so that's fun. And then we brought
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  in Joe Bignano from Maine. He's been in this system as a really good
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  player, has a calm collectiveness about him, and it's a really good thrower,
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  has a really nice song, can make all the throws. So I
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  think we're better there. And then you know, getting Takewon healthy again,
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  you know, take on as you guys remember he started the season as our
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  starter, got hurt the second series. The last two weeks he's been able
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  to at least throw our seven on seven drills. Now he's not in team
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  yet with that knee, but he will be when we open a camp.
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  And he looks so much further along than he ever did last year and he
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  didn't even get to play in any games. And then we've got a freshman,
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  you know, in Tucker, that is Tucker McDonald, that he didn't
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  look like a freshman. So I just feel like there's a much better understanding
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  what we want to do. I think that these guys haven't been in the
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  system. Nick's able to open it up a lot more, do things that
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  you know, he's always done with our play action game, getting the ball
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  down the field. It's just in look. I hope I'm right, you
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  know, I hope that the feeling I have about our offense is correct in
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  terms of the passing game. But it still remains to be seen. Talking
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  to Jim Moore Junior from you on football, let's talk about the Blue and
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  White spring game one thirty on this Saturday. And what can people that come
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  to the game expect to see. Well, let's see good competition. It
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  won't really take on the form of a true game. We don't have enough
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  bodies during the spring to just play an all out game. But it's very
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  it's gamelike situations. It's lie. We'll do some goal line, we'll do
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  some red zone, we'll do some two minute, we'll do some backed up.
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  You know, we'll do you know, all kinds of situations. So
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  if you want to see competitive football. It's a really fun environment to see
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  it in. You can get up close to the players, you know.
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  We try to make it as interactive as possible. We'll do a little one
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  on one, you know, so you can see the receivers going against the
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  dbs. We want to get work done because we need to capitalize in all
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  fifteen of these practices and get what's done. We also want to, you
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  know, if if people take time out of their Saturday to come out watch
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  our team ractice, we wanted to be exciting for them. We want them
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  to walk away with a feel for who the players on this team are in
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  the direction that this team is headed. And it's important to us to have
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  people out of these at these events, you know, we want we want
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  to grow the excitement. We want to generate excitement for Yukon football and we
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  wanted to see that. You know, there's a real commitment here that to
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  be in a team that our fans and our alumni can be proud of.
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  I'm really excited to see the defense. I think a lot of these guys
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  that are coming back or allow you and your staff to add some wrinkles and
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  twists to what you already built upon the foundation you started last year. Eric
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  Watts being back up front, number eight, Jackson Mitchell is a star.
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  We'd love them here in this studio, having those guys and just a lot
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  of the compliment of what was coming back from the defense last year. Have
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  you been able to add pages to that defensive playbook, add some twists,
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  add some wrinkles. Yeah, and we have. I'll just tell you a
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  couple of things. You don't come out of here and get disappointed. Okay.
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  Number one, we'll keep it fairly simple on defense on Saturday. For
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  the mere factors, I want to see him run to the football. I
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  want to see him execute fundamentally. I want to see him play with great
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  effort. I want to see him get in good position to tackle. We're
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  not trying to beat our offense. We're just trying to get better as a
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  team. And so while we're adding wrinkles and we're you know, we're able
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  to do more than we're able to do last year at any point in time,
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  we want to save a lot of that for the season and we want
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  to be a really good, fundamentally sound football team on defense. So that's
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  the first thing, and then the second thing is. I don't know that
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  we'll see much of Jackson on Saturday. You know, he's been nursing that
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  broken viicular for a year now and he had surgery in the offseason. He
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  practices and he does some of the stuff live, but we're being really careful
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  with him because we can't afford for him to rebreak that thing and this time.
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  So you'll get to see Noah Plaque, who's a new guy on this
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  team that we got from Delaware's at number twenty two, a really good linebacker.
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  Twoey, you know, our other new starting linebacker and over fifteen has
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  done a really good job. And you'll see a little bit of Jackson.
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  But I feel I think Jackson is an outstanding football player, and you know,
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  I think I'm protecting him a little bit. I want to make sure
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  he's ready to go and we kick it off for the season. Jim,
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  you brought pride back to the fan base here. And I'm speaking from someone
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  who's married to a Yukon and lum. Her father was Yukon, my sister
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  was Yukon. So you've brought pride back to football here in Connecticut. So
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  God bless you, my friend, and can't wait for this Saturday, and
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  can't wait for NC State Wolfpack September second. It's going to be here quickly,
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  so good luck and hopefully everybody stays healthy. Hey, thanks for talking.
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  I appreciate you guys. Now, I appreciate you Jim, Thank you
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  coach. All right, see man,