Latest / Coaches Corner / Football HC Jason Candle July 23

Transcript

Football HC Jason Candle July 23 · Coaches Corner

0:01
Speaker 1: Great point.
0:03
Speaker 2: All right, hey coach Jason Kandell coach on the cusp
0:07
Speaker 2: of opening camp here in a little while, and just
0:09
Speaker 2: maybe you can just give us some thoughts on the
0:11
Speaker 2: summer and how things camp. Yeah, I mean, first of all,
0:14
Speaker 2: thanks for coming, good afternoon, and for shiit you guys
0:17
Speaker 2: being here.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're excited about what lies ahead.
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Speaker 2: You know, we feel like we've had a really productive
0:23
Speaker 2: spring football practice that they followed a really good session
0:26
Speaker 2: of winter workouts. And then think everybody is in the
0:29
Speaker 2: same boat that you're trying to have a great summer
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Speaker 2: and you know, really pass off to coach Brochet and
0:33
Speaker 2: our strength staff and their ability to continue to build
0:35
Speaker 2: culture in a short amount of time.
0:37
Speaker 1: It's a really unique time in college football right now.
0:38
Speaker 1: Obviously that everybody.
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Speaker 2: Deals with the transfer portal, you know, at the semester
0:43
Speaker 2: break and you know, tries to get a bunch of
0:44
Speaker 2: players together, and you know, how quickly can you boild
0:47
Speaker 2: a team together is ultimately the challenge. So that's still
0:50
Speaker 2: a work in progress. And I think I said, like
0:52
Speaker 2: I said, I really want to credit our strength and
0:54
Speaker 2: conditioning staff for doing a great job with that part
0:56
Speaker 2: of it through the summer.
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Speaker 3: So because not having that second to transfer window a
1:00
Speaker 3: bit all with being able to build the camaraderie the team.
1:04
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it does.
1:06
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's a you know, you're locked in,
1:07
Speaker 2: you kind of know what you have, you know, but
1:10
Speaker 2: they're still moving pieces. Your freshmen having all arrived. I mean,
1:13
Speaker 2: their academic calendar when they finish high school, how that
1:15
Speaker 2: sorts it self out, that's all over the map and
1:17
Speaker 2: that's never gonna change. So yeah, but I think you
1:21
Speaker 2: want to you want to really be able to put
1:23
Speaker 2: some foundational principles into place in the middle of the
1:25
Speaker 2: winter and then carry them through.
1:27
Speaker 1: The entire football season.
1:28
Speaker 2: That's an ideal world, as we know, sometimes college football
1:32
Speaker 2: is not an ideal world, you know, when it comes
1:33
Speaker 2: to what that looks like. But I really credit our guys,
1:36
Speaker 2: our senior leadership on our team and our guys that
1:38
Speaker 2: have been able to you know, continue to carry the
1:41
Speaker 2: standards of this program. But prior to any of us
1:43
Speaker 2: being here, and then you know, our guys that have
1:45
Speaker 2: come with us from other places that buying into what
1:48
Speaker 2: we're trying to get get done.
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Speaker 4: It just felt like a really familiar process to you
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Speaker 4: or entirely new because you're an entirely new You're in
1:55
Speaker 4: an entirely new place.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that, you know, you're look it, it's culture,
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Speaker 2: team standards. You're really just trying to, you know, merge
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Speaker 2: highly accountable people together and allow them to be, you know,
2:12
Speaker 2: what they've been raised to do. You're trying to recruit
2:15
Speaker 2: guys that are products of good parenting. You're trying to
2:17
Speaker 2: get guys that really believe in, you know, being a
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Speaker 2: really good man first and foremost is going to allow
2:21
Speaker 2: them to be a great player that's not always perfect.
2:25
Speaker 1: That's more of an art and a science.
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Speaker 2: And you know, getting a bunch of guys into the
2:28
Speaker 2: room to really believe in creating a good culture in
2:31
Speaker 2: a good locker room that gives you the chance to
2:33
Speaker 2: go play and play well. You know, I think you've
2:35
Speaker 2: been around me long enough now in a short amount
2:38
Speaker 2: of time just to quickly understand that this is very
2:40
Speaker 2: process driven for me. This is not a result oriented thing.
2:44
Speaker 2: You have to figure out how to stack good days.
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Speaker 2: You've got to be able to buy into what you know,
2:48
Speaker 2: putting your energy in the right place each and every day,
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Speaker 2: and then if you can do that, you ultimately would
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Speaker 2: have some blind faith I believe that you're going to
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Speaker 2: go play.
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Speaker 1: Well, that's kind of where we're at right now.
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Speaker 3: I think you knew obviously whatever to hear about as
3:01
Speaker 3: a quarterback situation. Can you talk about what you have
3:04
Speaker 3: in the room and the skill set differences and how
3:07
Speaker 3: do you kind of see that shaping out?
3:08
Speaker 2: And seem so? Yeah, I mean I I don't. I
3:12
Speaker 2: don't have a earth shattering news to report. You know,
3:15
Speaker 2: coming out of spring football. You know, you hand the
3:17
Speaker 2: team to those to that position group in the summer
3:20
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of organic, you know times what
3:23
Speaker 2: they're out here throwing on their own and then the
3:25
Speaker 2: coaches aren't around and you're starting to see relationships for him.
3:29
Speaker 2: You're starting to see, you know, camaraderie built between you know,
3:32
Speaker 2: QB and offensive line, quarterback and receiver, and you know,
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Speaker 2: just how many times can we put them in a
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Speaker 2: position where their communication skills are stressed, you know, and
3:41
Speaker 2: then try to creative as many competitive situations in fall camp?
3:45
Speaker 2: You know, we weren't you know that we as competitive
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Speaker 2: as we thought we were in spring football.
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Speaker 1: That is nothing. It's it's not even close to what
3:52
Speaker 1: it has to be for pre season camp and ultimately
3:54
Speaker 1: we're gonna give them the season.
3:56
Speaker 3: Which which typicality that you look for to say, yeah,
3:59
Speaker 3: that's that's think.
4:02
Speaker 1: I think it's started with the recruiting process.
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Speaker 2: I mean, for me, it's, you know, every position coach
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Speaker 2: that finds it, you know, has a couple of you know,
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Speaker 2: performance skills that we feel like are necessary to play
4:09
Speaker 2: the position.
4:11
Speaker 1: Now, look, it's the most scrutinized position. It's sport, and
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Speaker 1: it's you know, you for a reason.
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Speaker 2: So, uh, these guys picked that they understand that they're
4:21
Speaker 2: they're totally and then total.
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Speaker 1: Understanding what they signed up for.
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Speaker 2: So you want guys that make great decisions. You want
4:27
Speaker 2: guys that are accurate the football. You want guys that
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Speaker 2: have adequate for work to be able to get themselves
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Speaker 2: in and out of trouble and extend plays. You know,
4:34
Speaker 2: some guys may be able to pull his own read
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Speaker 2: and run for eighty yards. Others may be able to
4:37
Speaker 2: go for three or four yards and fall down, but
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Speaker 2: uh that's we're still a productive play. You know, you
4:43
Speaker 2: want some leadership skills and then you know you you
4:46
Speaker 2: you ultimately you have to be able to make the
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Speaker 2: all the throws. So if you can have all of
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Speaker 2: those things in great arm strength, that's that's your that's
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Speaker 2: your perfect guy in my opinion, you know, and some
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Speaker 2: guys lack some of those things, others are very.
4:58
Speaker 1: Good at others.
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Speaker 2: Right, So, you know, trying to get those guys and
5:02
Speaker 2: whoever that guy may be, the coaches have been ultimate,
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Speaker 2: ultimately responsibility to go to put a plan around him,
5:07
Speaker 2: to let him go play and play well.
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Speaker 1: What are so many new players?
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Speaker 3: Does that force you to speed up your evaluation process?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's slippery slope. We've got to you know, really.
5:21
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tell the team who the quarterback is.
5:23
Speaker 1: The quarterback.
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Speaker 2: The team's gonna tell the tell us who the quarterback is,
5:26
Speaker 2: right and whenever that happens. And and really that's the
5:30
Speaker 2: same way at every position, right, I mean that stuff
5:33
Speaker 2: it's gonna figure itself out. You're gonna continue to if
5:36
Speaker 2: you if you treat it January the same as you
5:38
Speaker 2: treat August.
5:39
Speaker 1: It's ultimately gonna be a.
5:40
Speaker 2: Process to where it comes out to where you know,
5:42
Speaker 2: you put your best eleven out there in all three
5:44
Speaker 2: phases of the game.
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Speaker 1: They don't put your best before in terms of finding
5:48
Speaker 1: who that quarterback is I'm curious about the process. Some
5:51
Speaker 1: coaches will track every throw during fun or do you
5:54
Speaker 1: do that?
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Speaker 2: Or is this I mean, everything's charted, you know, you
5:57
Speaker 2: all you ultimately want to have, you know, statistical reasons
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Speaker 2: on why you decide what you decide or you know,
6:05
Speaker 2: but I think there's it's a bigger picture than that,
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Speaker 2: I really do.
6:07
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, you there's a.
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Speaker 2: Big difference between you know, going out and throwing seven
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Speaker 2: on seven in a pair of shorts than there is
6:16
Speaker 2: when there's a two hundred and seventy five pounds defensive end.
6:18
Speaker 2: You know, running at at the back behind your neck,
6:21
Speaker 2: You're like you're ready to hitch in the back of
6:22
Speaker 2: your head. So you got to be able to put
6:25
Speaker 2: them in eleven on eleven situations. There's only so many
6:27
Speaker 2: of those opportunities through springball, or isn't any of those
6:30
Speaker 2: opportunities throughout the summer, so we have to use Faull.
6:32
Speaker 1: Campus is a big piece of that.
6:34
Speaker 4: Jason, You've talked about just the landscape, how quickly everything
6:37
Speaker 4: is changing.
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Speaker 3: What do you think is the importance of this football
6:41
Speaker 3: program carrying the momentum that's been built here?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think it's critical.
6:46
Speaker 2: You know, ultimately that we I think we have to
6:48
Speaker 2: define that and what's realistic terms for this team. You know,
6:52
Speaker 2: yesterday's home runs don't win today's game. So you know,
6:55
Speaker 2: our successes or this program successes or failures either way
6:59
Speaker 2: have no impact on what is going to go on
7:01
Speaker 2: here when this ball gets kicked off in September here,
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Speaker 2: So you know, we've got to live in the silo
7:07
Speaker 2: of making sure that we put our best foot forward
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Speaker 2: here and again, I think that starts to putting your
7:11
Speaker 2: energy in the right place each and every day, and
7:13
Speaker 2: you know, trying to make sure that you're really a
7:15
Speaker 2: good fundamental team. You know what we're getting robbed of,
7:18
Speaker 2: and every coach in the country would probably agree with this,
7:20
Speaker 2: is you're getting robbed of the opportunity to compete and
7:22
Speaker 2: play the game the way it's supposed to be played,
7:24
Speaker 2: just because of practice restrictions and things that you know
7:27
Speaker 2: that are part of what today's football looks like. So
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Speaker 2: you can't miss the opportunities when time when it's time
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Speaker 2: to scrimmage, you can't miss the opportunities where it's time
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Speaker 2: to really play the game at a high level and compete.
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Speaker 1: You know at the level that's going to be required
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Speaker 1: for you to win put more names. Looking at that success,
7:43
Speaker 1: how much do you fall back from what you know?
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Speaker 1: And what can you take from what's been built here?
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Speaker 2: Well, I think that you know, a gym and his
7:50
Speaker 2: staff did a great job. Really, you know, the success
7:54
Speaker 2: is spoke from it speaks for itself the last couple
7:56
Speaker 2: of years. But I think even like through the interview
7:57
Speaker 2: process though, you know, once I got the job, being
7:59
Speaker 2: able to and watch pull practice, watch guys running the
8:02
Speaker 2: ball on defense, and watch you know, these players some
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Speaker 2: of the fundamental things that I think are critically important
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Speaker 2: to be successful in football.
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Speaker 1: They had they had right, and we don't want to
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Speaker 1: lose that momentum. From that standpoint of.
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Speaker 2: It, We've got to be able to figure out where
8:15
Speaker 2: we can plug and place things and put things in
8:18
Speaker 2: place where to enhance and make it better. So yeah,
8:21
Speaker 2: ultimately that's our job is to try to move the
8:23
Speaker 2: product forward. What made you believe Ryan Manilac was you're
8:26
Speaker 2: the good guy to be a defensive coordinator here.
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Speaker 1: And what's he's shown you so far?
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Speaker 2: Well, he's ready, I mean, he's he's done it before
8:32
Speaker 2: it at the small college level.
8:34
Speaker 1: But he's ready for that opportunity. You know.
8:37
Speaker 2: We you know, we had a we had a dog
8:39
Speaker 2: fight with Pitt in the bowl game a couple of
8:41
Speaker 2: years ago at Toledo, and yeah, we scored a lot
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Speaker 2: of points. And sometimes that maybe gets massed over just
8:46
Speaker 2: because there was six overtimes. But that's a it's a
8:48
Speaker 2: tough scheme to prepare for. They put pressure on you,
8:52
Speaker 2: they make you earn plays, they create a lot of havoc,
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Speaker 2: and I feel like we have the players in place
8:58
Speaker 2: to make that thing go and go it high.
9:00
Speaker 4: Levelm's familie, personal level.
9:02
Speaker 1: How do you how do you feel? It seems like
9:04
Speaker 1: you've been here more than you know, it's.
9:05
Speaker 3: Almost closing a year, But how do you feel?
9:08
Speaker 4: You know, you get some familiarity that some guys going
9:10
Speaker 4: back in you know seasons, approaches, or that nervous.
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Speaker 1: Energy for you or yeah, but I think this time
9:15
Speaker 1: of year always provides that, right. I mean, you know,
9:17
Speaker 1: you're you're you're.
9:19
Speaker 2: Coming off of a couple weeks of you know, vacation
9:23
Speaker 2: if you will, playing bad golf, pulling kids around on
9:26
Speaker 2: a boat and doing you know, normal life things right
9:29
Speaker 2: and family time.
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Speaker 1: And you're you get back into the groove and you're
9:32
Speaker 1: back working, and uh yeah, you have that anticipation to
9:36
Speaker 1: get the thing going and get started.
9:38
Speaker 2: And and to be honest with you, if I didn't
9:40
Speaker 2: have that, and I didn't want that, I wouldn't. I
9:42
Speaker 2: don't think you're meant, you're meant for the job or
9:43
Speaker 2: ready to do the job, but that I think that's
9:45
Speaker 2: what it requires. It requires a lot of energy, requires
9:48
Speaker 2: a lot of time on task, and then to do
9:51
Speaker 2: it in a new place for the first time. I
9:52
Speaker 2: mean there's a lot of moving parts when it comes
9:54
Speaker 2: to that part of it, too, so but fired up
9:56
Speaker 2: to get going and really excited to see what.
9:58
Speaker 1: Our team's really made up.
9:59
Speaker 4: Because this felt like really chaotic time in your life
10:01
Speaker 4: the last six or seven months. Simultaneous to everything football,
10:04
Speaker 4: you were a jackted to a new campus and new community.
10:06
Speaker 1: It's all kinds of things going on. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
10:10
Speaker 1: one portal window for the first time ever.
10:12
Speaker 2: Probably not the best time to take a job, but
10:15
Speaker 2: really thankful and grateful for the opportunity to be here.
10:18
Speaker 2: You know, it's been a it's been a really good transition.
10:20
Speaker 2: You know, it's been seven months. It feels like it's
10:23
Speaker 2: been you know that's that's a long time ago. But
10:26
Speaker 2: uh yeah, I mean I think this is what you
10:28
Speaker 2: work for, and this is what the time, and you know,
10:30
Speaker 2: you're you're working really hard to get to this time
10:32
Speaker 2: to really see you know, the you know, your work
10:35
Speaker 2: come to action. And uh, we've got a great staff,
10:37
Speaker 2: We've got great people in the building, and our kids
10:39
Speaker 2: have done everything to ask who've asked them to do.
10:40
Speaker 1: So it's it's gonna be a fun you know, next
10:42
Speaker 1: four or five weeks.
10:43
Speaker 4: You ever had a reload project like this before in
10:46
Speaker 4: your career where so many guys have to learn a
10:48
Speaker 4: new system at once.
10:50
Speaker 2: I have not, and I don't think anybody else has
10:52
Speaker 2: ever so quite honestly, I mean, I mean we were
10:55
Speaker 2: talking about this the other day in the staff room.
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Speaker 1: I mean you're talking about forty.
10:58
Speaker 2: Plus transfers you talk and twenty guys that came with
11:02
Speaker 2: us from Toledo, plus some high school guys, and then
11:04
Speaker 2: if you fast forward to the twenty seven class, I
11:06
Speaker 2: mean we're over twenty commitments in that class. I mean,
11:07
Speaker 2: you're pushing close to ninety to one hundred guys that
11:11
Speaker 2: you know that we've committed to come play here at
11:14
Speaker 2: the University of Connecticut, you know, and most of the
11:17
Speaker 2: staff being new.
11:18
Speaker 1: So it is what it is.
11:20
Speaker 2: Now, I mean right, I mean there's there's there's I
11:22
Speaker 2: know one thing, our first our first opponent's not gonna
11:24
Speaker 2: feel sorry for anything we got going on.
11:26
Speaker 1: So we've we've got the pieces of place. We just
11:28
Speaker 1: got to get to work and then have a good
11:29
Speaker 1: fun camp.
11:30
Speaker 3: What was your friendly importate experience?
11:33
Speaker 2: Oh, very conservative first pitch? Uh, you know, I've heard
11:36
Speaker 2: it thirty five times, don't bounce the ball right, so,
11:40
Speaker 2: which we did. But man, I've been a Red Sox
11:43
Speaker 2: fan my whole life, and you know, doing a special
11:46
Speaker 2: place and my gosh, what a special time in their
11:48
Speaker 2: history right now, what they're what they're going through, and
11:51
Speaker 2: you know, a fun team to watch last year or
11:53
Speaker 2: four weeks here, so it was really cool.
11:55
Speaker 1: I'll just become a Red Sox fan from Ohio.
11:58
Speaker 2: Well, I think the first time you go to Fenway Park,
12:01
Speaker 2: you fall in love with what what that is. You know,
12:05
Speaker 2: you get many of opportunities to see baseball in the Midwest,
12:08
Speaker 2: but I don't know if you get a chance to
12:09
Speaker 2: just see it like that, and you know, going there
12:12
Speaker 2: as a kid and just you know, you know, falling
12:15
Speaker 2: in love with that place, and then you know, the
12:17
Speaker 2: good teams that were.
12:18
Speaker 1: Starting to roll through the time of as as I'm
12:20
Speaker 1: starting to get older and get just latched on and
12:23
Speaker 1: having like a did you state to the end? Oh yeah,
12:26
Speaker 1: yeah I did in the middle of their winning street
12:29
Speaker 1: did uh? Game fourteen? Game fourteen?
12:33
Speaker 3: You kind of haled it.
12:34
Speaker 2: I didn't under something that you said that I didn't coach.
12:40
Speaker 1: You know, you talk about consistency.
12:42
Speaker 3: I know, if the past, but in your past job,
12:44
Speaker 3: eight out.
12:44
Speaker 4: Of ten years, you know, to be in a Bowl
12:46
Speaker 4: game in the highs and lows of this court, that's
12:48
Speaker 4: you know, extremely difficult.
12:49
Speaker 1: How do you build that consistency here?
12:51
Speaker 4: What are the building blocks about consistencies?
12:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I I think that's the expectation, right.
12:57
Speaker 2: I mean one of those years was the COVID year
13:01
Speaker 2: we were four and two and we didn't decide to
13:03
Speaker 2: go to a game, and the other year we were
13:05
Speaker 2: closed out and we were eligible. So I mean, really
13:07
Speaker 2: ten out of ten times, I mean, of the opportunity
13:09
Speaker 2: to do that, You're but I don't want to get
13:11
Speaker 2: into that in the sense of, like I don't want
13:14
Speaker 2: to paint the picture that there's we're all just hey,
13:17
Speaker 2: put some goals on the wall, and that's what we're
13:19
Speaker 2: trying to do. I mean, we're trying to be the
13:20
Speaker 2: best version of ourselves every day. I mentioned earlier, this
13:23
Speaker 2: is very process driven thing. If you can't live into
13:26
Speaker 2: twenty four hours that you're gifted, if you're good, if
13:28
Speaker 2: you're lucky enough to get it, it's gonna be really hard,
13:31
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. You got to you gotta
13:33
Speaker 2: be able to see what's right in front of you.
13:34
Speaker 2: We got a lot of tough tasks right in front
13:36
Speaker 2: of us to even worry about now before we even worry.
13:38
Speaker 1: About, you know, getting the season kicked off.
13:40
Speaker 2: And then from there we do what we need to
13:42
Speaker 2: do each and every day, we'll feel like we'll be
13:44
Speaker 2: we'll be playing in the postseason for sure. Right if
13:46
Speaker 2: Treadway is one of the guys we get to talk
13:48
Speaker 2: to you today, did you what.
13:50
Speaker 1: Did you see in him last year that made you
13:52
Speaker 1: want to bring him here?
13:54
Speaker 2: Man, I'd go back to high school recruiting on that one.
13:56
Speaker 2: I would go just I think at Worker a guy
14:00
Speaker 2: that is again, he's like us.
14:03
Speaker 1: He puts his energy in the right place each and
14:05
Speaker 1: every day.
14:06
Speaker 2: You know, he played on a good high school team,
14:08
Speaker 2: comes from a great family. I say this often. You
14:11
Speaker 2: try to recruit guys that are products of great parenting.
14:13
Speaker 2: He certainly is one of those. He's not a guy
14:16
Speaker 2: that you have to consistently remind him on how to
14:19
Speaker 2: what a day, a good day should look like. He's
14:22
Speaker 2: got a great feel for that. He's very talented, and
14:25
Speaker 2: when guys are very talented and highly accountable, it usually
14:28
Speaker 2: leads to a really, really good thing. Can you're explain
14:30
Speaker 2: your leadership council where that idea came from and maybe
14:33
Speaker 2: what it's functioned. Yeah, I just think that you you
14:37
Speaker 2: want to make sure that you have a look like.
14:42
Speaker 2: You can't be in this position and be naive enough
14:44
Speaker 2: to think that you've created a locker room with the
14:46
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifteen really alpha males that are elite
14:50
Speaker 2: human beings and do everything right every single day, And
14:53
Speaker 2: even if that was the case, you'd miss some of
14:55
Speaker 2: the really good. So you want to make sure that
14:57
Speaker 2: you have layers to what it looks like. You want
14:59
Speaker 2: to have a you know, a good message from the
15:01
Speaker 2: top that goes to a really good coaching staff. It
15:03
Speaker 2: filters down to a really good group of position leaders
15:06
Speaker 2: and guys that can carry the message into the locker room.
15:08
Speaker 2: And then ultimately, if that thing works the way it should,
15:11
Speaker 2: you know, the problem should surface. I mean, great coaches
15:13
Speaker 2: should be great anticipators of issues, right, and you know,
15:17
Speaker 2: little small matches that are burning can't turn into house fires.
15:19
Speaker 2: So anytime you get hundreds of people in a room together,
15:22
Speaker 2: there's gonna be issues. There's gonna be things that pop up.
15:25
Speaker 2: You want to you know, nip them in the butt
15:27
Speaker 2: as soon as you can, and you want to get them,
15:29
Speaker 2: you know, handled in an honest way, in an authentic way.
15:31
Speaker 2: And I think if you look at our time at Toledo,
15:33
Speaker 2: you know, great success because of you know, really a
15:36
Speaker 2: good locker room, guys that pleased themselves the right way,
15:39
Speaker 2: and guys that were Yeah, they were great people coming
15:41
Speaker 2: out of high school, but man, oh man, they got
15:43
Speaker 2: around another group of good young men and felt like
15:46
Speaker 2: it was good to buy into something bigger than themselves.
15:48
Speaker 2: And sometimes you need, you know, peer to peer reminders
15:51
Speaker 2: of what that looks like.
15:52
Speaker 1: Which guys have already emerged as leaders think, Yeah, I
15:56
Speaker 1: mean I think there's a there's a bunch of them.
15:58
Speaker 2: You know, and what does that look like in the
16:01
Speaker 2: middle of June or middle of July, Like, is may
16:05
Speaker 2: look totally different than what that looks like in February March,
16:07
Speaker 2: and I hope it doesn't look terribly different, you know,
16:10
Speaker 2: as it goes through August and you know, September and October.
16:13
Speaker 2: But I think those guys are starting to emerge. The
16:15
Speaker 2: longer we're together, the more that will happen. There's not
16:18
Speaker 2: a crown that you put on somebody's head and say, hey,
16:20
Speaker 2: you're the captain, go pound your chest and give a
16:23
Speaker 2: great lockerom speech each and every week.
16:25
Speaker 1: That's not who we are, you know.
16:27
Speaker 2: So you kind of want to You want to mixture
16:29
Speaker 2: guys that have a voice, mixture guys.
16:31
Speaker 1: That really are comfortable leading from with it, you.
16:33
Speaker 2: Know, just by their work ethic and how they go
16:34
Speaker 2: about their their day to day.
16:36
Speaker 1: You know, routine.
16:37
Speaker 2: And I feel like we've got a bunch of guys
16:38
Speaker 2: that have a real sphere of influence.
16:40
Speaker 1: How do you identify those position leaders? And have you
16:42
Speaker 1: done that already?
16:43
Speaker 2: And I think they identify themselves. I mean, you know,
16:46
Speaker 2: if they have the respect of their teammates, they're ultimately
16:48
Speaker 2: gonna have you know, our respect and I think that
16:50
Speaker 2: part of its sorts of stelf out. So you know,
16:52
Speaker 2: the longer this goes, the more that starts to show up.
16:54
Speaker 2: And but you want to have veteran guys that have
16:57
Speaker 2: been through the fights, They've been through the fires, they've
16:59
Speaker 2: been through the you know, the adversities of what a
17:01
Speaker 2: college football season will provide and you know can provide,
17:05
Speaker 2: you know, so you start there and then from there
17:06
Speaker 2: you want to have layers to it. You want to
17:07
Speaker 2: have a good freshman to you know, seeesa, Hey, look,
17:09
Speaker 2: if I can attach myself to these guys.
17:11
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna climb the ladder and be in
17:13
Speaker 1: a good place too. A guy like Keavon Sherman, what's
17:16
Speaker 1: he gonna bring here?
17:17
Speaker 3: And what are you looking at out of end this
17:19
Speaker 3: season as.
17:19
Speaker 2: He looks at another job. Well, he's one of those
17:22
Speaker 2: guys I think that really you know, understands that you know,
17:26
Speaker 2: what he does each and every day here is it
17:28
Speaker 2: has He has a lot of eyes on and the
17:30
Speaker 2: importance of that right and to do that in the
17:32
Speaker 2: in the right ways. And you know he last year
17:36
Speaker 2: trying to win a starting job, trying to figure it out,
17:38
Speaker 2: and some guys when they're fighting for positions and they're
17:40
Speaker 2: trying to compete, they don't.
17:42
Speaker 1: They don't.
17:42
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't even ask him this. I would just say, hey,
17:44
Speaker 2: look like, lead yourself. Try to try to be the
17:47
Speaker 2: best leader of you you can be, so you can
17:49
Speaker 2: put your best foot forward and go win a job.
17:51
Speaker 2: But once that happens, and once you've become a good player,
17:53
Speaker 2: and you become an All conference player like he has,
17:55
Speaker 2: and you've had a really good season under your belt,
17:58
Speaker 2: you've got you naturally have the respect to your teammates.
18:00
Speaker 2: Nowlet's try to Now it's time to bring somebody along
18:03
Speaker 2: with you when you're these late nights, when you're and
18:05
Speaker 2: you're working by yourself. Now, let's try to bring two
18:07
Speaker 2: or three other guys along, trying to make sure that you,
18:10
Speaker 2: you know, not only can be the leader of the
18:11
Speaker 2: linebacker room, but also the leader of the defense.
18:13
Speaker 1: Coach, what's impressed you the most about some of the
18:15
Speaker 1: guys on this dependive line. Obviously we're able to bring in,
18:18
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of talent there out of the portal.
18:20
Speaker 2: Well, it's a deeper room, very competitive room. You know,
18:26
Speaker 2: in the midst of some fierce competition to win reps
18:29
Speaker 2: and to win a job.
18:30
Speaker 1: You've got really good guys that they're really pulled for.
18:33
Speaker 2: One another and under they're fighting for each other to
18:35
Speaker 2: be successful, and you.
18:37
Speaker 1: Know that's that's a really cool thing to see.
18:39
Speaker 2: So you know that that I hope it becomes the
18:42
Speaker 2: group that you can play seven or eight guys throughout
18:44
Speaker 2: the course of the game, you don't miss a beat
18:46
Speaker 2: and you can really do a good job having a
18:47
Speaker 2: really solid rotation.
18:49
Speaker 1: Not just in the in the sense of, hey, we
18:51
Speaker 1: want to reward good guys, but you need that in
18:53
Speaker 1: today's college before there's so.
18:54
Speaker 2: Many teams playing fast and tempo and trying to wear
18:57
Speaker 2: down the D line, that more of those guys on
18:58
Speaker 2: the front you have ready to go to or off
19:00
Speaker 2: you're gonna be coach with.
19:02
Speaker 1: What would you say that would you could work for yourself?
19:04
Speaker 1: What we just think what guys will say about working
19:06
Speaker 1: for you? Players playing for you? You want to play
19:08
Speaker 1: for yourself? What makes you a guy that players want
19:10
Speaker 1: to play.
19:11
Speaker 2: More people who want to work for Yeah, I mean,
19:13
Speaker 2: I think you know, ultimately that's a tough question. I mean,
19:15
Speaker 2: there's you know, I'm a pretty humble guy I mean,
19:18
Speaker 2: I'm not, you know, but I would say that, you know,
19:21
Speaker 2: you want your players that think that you're a guy.
19:23
Speaker 1: That's in to fight with them, not fighting against them.
19:25
Speaker 2: You know, the same thing with the staff, or you're
19:27
Speaker 2: not You're not gonna ask anybody in the organization to
19:30
Speaker 2: do anything you're not willing to do yourself. So I
19:32
Speaker 2: think if it starts there, and it starts with humility
19:34
Speaker 2: and you can be honest with yourself and honest with
19:36
Speaker 2: your coaches and honest with your players, it's gonna.
19:38
Speaker 1: End up in a good place.
19:39
Speaker 2: And I think that we you know, throughout the course
19:41
Speaker 2: of the season, we know that adversity's gonna come.
19:43
Speaker 1: There's gonna be some hard moments, there's gonna be some.
19:45
Speaker 2: Tough days, and we just got to do a good
19:47
Speaker 2: job managing that and handling that.
19:48
Speaker 1: The only thing you can do that with is authenticity
19:50
Speaker 1: and fability.
19:51
Speaker 2: And so we'll start there, and you know, if that's
19:54
Speaker 2: not good enough for somebody, then you know, we have
19:56
Speaker 2: more conversations. But I think that's that's where you start,
19:58
Speaker 2: and you know, you and I think that that's that's
20:00
Speaker 2: the recipe for dealing with expectations. You want to win
20:02
Speaker 2: you want to be. You want to win every game.
20:05
Speaker 2: You want to have great success. You want to be
20:06
Speaker 2: the best offense in the country.
20:07
Speaker 1: You want to be a lead on defense, you want
20:09
Speaker 1: to play great in the kicking game.
20:10
Speaker 2: And you'll find the right reasons and the real reasons
20:13
Speaker 2: to fix things if you have you ability. But you
20:16
Speaker 2: got to you gotta have a burning desire to get better,
20:18
Speaker 2: and you got to have an inability just to keep
20:20
Speaker 2: the main thing, the main thing.
20:21
Speaker 1: Have you seen something in ty Chan since you've been here.
20:24
Speaker 1: They'll let you know. He could be part of that
20:26
Speaker 1: leadership council.
20:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, he finally cut his hair. That's first and foremost.
20:30
Speaker 2: But you know, I give that guy a lot of credit.
20:33
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think that I'm here working
20:37
Speaker 2: this team is preparing for a bowl game. I'm up
20:40
Speaker 2: in that office and guys are walking in left and
20:42
Speaker 2: right and telling me, Hey, I want to go in
20:43
Speaker 2: the transfer portal. There won't any arguments for me. You know,
20:48
Speaker 2: I think that you don't want to be here and
20:50
Speaker 2: this is what you do. You don't want to do this,
20:51
Speaker 2: you want to go somewhere else.
20:52
Speaker 1: That's your choice.
20:53
Speaker 2: You know, I wish you nothing but the best of luck,
20:56
Speaker 2: and I think Ty came in and had a real
20:57
Speaker 2: honest conversation and just said, Hey, look like I've given
21:00
Speaker 2: a lot to this place. We've had a lot of
21:02
Speaker 2: success here. I want to finish this off the right way,
21:04
Speaker 2: and what does that look like for me? Through our conversations,
21:07
Speaker 2: you know what he said he wanted out of this,
21:09
Speaker 2: what he has, what he's done in seven months.
21:12
Speaker 1: Man, oh man, is that right on, right on part
21:14
Speaker 1: of what he said he wanted.
21:15
Speaker 2: So if that can continue for the next five months,
21:17
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a great year for that young man,
21:19
Speaker 2: and he's gonna have, hopefully have some future, you know,
21:21
Speaker 2: after the season playing football.
21:24
Speaker 4: Coach something you know, not across sports, but something coach role.
21:26
Speaker 1: He talks about a lot and identity.
21:28
Speaker 4: He's always pushing the identity. You want to play to
21:31
Speaker 4: your identity, with your identity your team this year, with
21:34
Speaker 4: your ideal identity.
21:35
Speaker 1: Well, I think that we're figuring that out right.
21:38
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's part of an extensive practice plan
21:41
Speaker 2: from the spring and you know, summer OTAs and getting
21:44
Speaker 2: into a highly.
21:44
Speaker 1: Competitive fall camp.
21:46
Speaker 2: We got to figure out you know, you don't just
21:47
Speaker 2: figure out who your best eleven are you gona figure
21:49
Speaker 2: out what they can do well. Uh, and then from
21:51
Speaker 2: there the coach's responsibility to put the scheme around the players.
21:55
Speaker 2: I mean, there's nothing more frustrating in high school recruiting
21:58
Speaker 2: than going to the high school and you're in a
22:00
Speaker 2: high school coach tell me about the spread offense, and
22:02
Speaker 2: then when you ask them who the best players are,
22:03
Speaker 2: they say, I got a great fullback.
22:05
Speaker 1: Like it just doesn't match up. So you gotta you
22:08
Speaker 1: gotta put the plan together around the players that are
22:10
Speaker 1: you know, that are really really good and play.
22:12
Speaker 2: To their their strength, so to speak. And then through that,
22:15
Speaker 2: throughout that you you do create that identity.
22:17
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, just generally speaking, you toughness
22:20
Speaker 1: still wins.
22:21
Speaker 2: I mean, the game honors tougher, so we better be
22:23
Speaker 2: able to win that line of scrimmage.
22:24
Speaker 1: However that is.
22:25
Speaker 2: And whether that's playing with five OH linemens, six OH linemen,
22:27
Speaker 2: two tight ends, three tight ends, four receivers, I don't know.
22:30
Speaker 2: Our players will determine that, whether that's you know, five
22:33
Speaker 2: D linemen on the field or four D linemen on
22:35
Speaker 2: the field or three. Our players will tell us that too.
22:37
Speaker 1: Because you gota obviously did busy seven months. How much
22:40
Speaker 1: time you.
22:41
Speaker 4: Spent jumping into the history beyond the recent history with
22:44
Speaker 4: coach more than the RANDI s skip ball to.
22:46
Speaker 2: Stadium across the street with the basketball facility is now,
22:48
Speaker 2: have you done much of that?
22:51
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's every day when I have
22:52
Speaker 1: a free moment.
22:53
Speaker 2: I'm trying to steal some knowledge from somebody I got.
22:55
Speaker 1: I got Coach Baylock here, who's uh.
22:58
Speaker 2: You know, he's a he's an institution, right, I mean,
23:00
Speaker 2: this is this is a wealth of knowledge and a
23:03
Speaker 2: and a.
23:03
Speaker 1: Great human being who's just continues to give and give
23:06
Speaker 1: and give.
23:07
Speaker 2: And you know, I think there's whether it's former players
23:09
Speaker 2: and you know, finding their background and getting their story,
23:12
Speaker 2: whether it's people in the community that really stepped up.
23:14
Speaker 1: To support our program.
23:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I lose sleep over that loose sleepover
23:18
Speaker 2: to not being able to catch up fast enough to
23:20
Speaker 2: be to be with that.
23:21
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's fearful to.
23:23
Speaker 2: Come here and have you guys asked a question about
23:25
Speaker 2: a former player ten years ago, mean not know to answer.
23:27
Speaker 2: So that's part of being new. It's part of being
23:29
Speaker 2: in a new, new place, in a new environment. And
23:32
Speaker 2: when you want to do a good job for a
23:33
Speaker 2: particular place because they give you the opportunity.
23:35
Speaker 1: It's it's important that you do that.
23:37
Speaker 2: Like you said, there's a lot of new faces, but
23:39
Speaker 2: has there has there been an individual that's really stood
23:42
Speaker 2: out that's given that's always great to be around.
23:45
Speaker 1: Uh, that's given as a better feed of the team
23:47
Speaker 1: on and off the field.
23:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's that's a that's a quality I
23:51
Speaker 2: think that we we.
23:53
Speaker 1: Naturally gravitate towards and that's just competitive spirit.
23:56
Speaker 2: And you know, look, I was fortunate enough at our
23:58
Speaker 2: last place to have a lot of draft picks have
24:00
Speaker 2: played for us, and every one of those guys had.
24:02
Speaker 1: A great competitive spirit.
24:03
Speaker 2: It wouldn't matter if they were drafted in the first
24:05
Speaker 2: round or a priority free agent. They're gonna put their
24:08
Speaker 2: pads on and they're gonna go to an NFL camp
24:09
Speaker 2: and they're gonna make that team cut them. So I
24:13
Speaker 2: don't necessarily single anybody out when it comes to that.
24:16
Speaker 2: And it doesn't mean that we don't have any of that.
24:18
Speaker 2: I feel like we have a lot of that, you know,
24:20
Speaker 2: But I think the energy and the steam that that
24:22
Speaker 2: is provided in the summer, see if we can have
24:25
Speaker 2: that same energy in that same steam and that mentality
24:27
Speaker 2: when things get really hard here in August, in September,