March 27, 2008

- On practice today: "Every day we add new things offensively and defensively and we do some form of special teams, so each and every day we're trying to add to the system and a lot of the kids have been exposed to some of the plays, but a lot of the new guys really haven't done much of this so we're trying to expose them to the offense and defense as well."

On how the team is grasping the new concepts put in by the coaches: "I think they're doing a good job. They're grasping what we're trying to do and we made some mistakes the first day, we try to correct them off the video, and we made some mistakes today which we'll try to correct again. But the key is to try to get better each and every day and I think the players are working hard on the field to try to improve themselves and to get better as a team. I like their attitude right now."

On how the running backs look right now: "André Anderson is a real good running back in my opinion. He's got size, he's got speed, and he's worked extremely hard in the offseason by himself to catch the ball better because our tailbacks catch the ball. So he's done a great job of working catching the ball. Andre Agers is a freshman who redshirted a year ago. He was on the scout team, but he's shown real quickness. He's making some mistakes as far as plays because he doesn't know them all yet, but he's got a lot of ability. And then J.T. McDonald had a pulled hamstring so he hasn't done anything yet."

On the fullbacks and their role on the team: "I'm pleased with both Cody Blackwelder and Jordan Stephany. They're both true sophomores now. They both played as true freshmen. They do the things that we want. Number one, they'll block. Number two, they can catch the football, and they're good runners. As a matter of fact, there will be some times where both of them will actually have to play tailback as well. I'm trying to teach them some tailback so we will have some depth at that position."